


A Boy with A Telescope (And Your Stars Smile Down on You)

by isuilde



Category: Free!
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Unrepentant Fluff, communication issues, idek what happened i'm sorry, self-confidence issues, slow burn i guess because it reaches 20k, this is also very much Makoto-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 16:56:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4067551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isuilde/pseuds/isuilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tachibana Makoto struggles with university, long-distance relationship, and being an ordinary boy surounded by stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Boy with A Telescope (And Your Stars Smile Down on You)

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a birthday present for all the February babies Makorin shippers, but apparently I could only finished it just now, so. Just a warning, it's unbeta-ed, because I really don't want to make anyone else look over this monster of 20k++ to find mistakes, so I'm sorry in advance.
> 
> PROMISED BIRTHDAY PRESENT FOR AL FEBRUARY BABIES IN MAKORIN SHIP, I hope you guys would enjoy it. ♥ Most of GHGL Project in March, April and May goes pretty much to this fic. \o/

Tokyo is crowded. 

Tokyo is polluted. 

Tokyo holds everything Tachibana Makoto thinks he needs to achieve, so he stays there year after year after year, acing his classes and volunteers in projects involving kids and sometimes goes out for drinks with his university friends. His days consist of comfortable routines that common college students face every day: panicking over assignments, late grocery shopping and failed dishes, countless cup ramens, discussing classes over lunch, and weekend plans made in-between changing classes. 

Tokyo is crowded and polluted and has the most confusing subway lines, but Makoto’s world is no longer the small town of Iwatobi sitting by the beach, and he grows to love the busy streets and apartments with thin walls, grows to love the lights pollution and the night sky devoid of stars, grows to love the hole-in-the-wall ramen shop where he and Haruka like to go for dinner. Iwatobi is _home_ , but Tokyo has now become another kind of home, too, and instead of snapping at the horizon line and his footprints on the sand, Makoto now takes photos of stray cats in alleyways and the dishes he slowly learns to cook (and mostly fails) to send to Rin. 

_This used to be very fresh, very green asparagus_ , he writes under a picture of the charcoal black lump on his plate, imagining Rin’s snicker when he gets the mail. _I’m going to Haru’s for dinner._  

**\-----o0o----**

Rin isn’t his first boyfriend. Shigino Kisumi is. But it starts with Makoto’s obvious crush on Rin, which Kisumi finds extremely amusing, especially with the way Makoto curiously, _desperately_ , asks about Rin and Australia and _did he say anything else--?_  

“You know,” Kisumi says, mischief dancing in his eyes and the curve of his lips and Makoto is sharply reminded when Rin first brought up the topic of their relay. “I stole Rin’s first kiss. I haven’t kissed anyone else ever since, though, so you know, if you want to share Rin’s first kiss, you could kiss me.” 

It is, somehow, a sound logic for a first year middle school boy. And Rin’s only been talking about Haruka in his letters, so Makoto’s been feeling a little disappointed, and it’s fine for him to take whatever is offered to him, right? This little piece of Rin, left in Kisumi, and maybe if Makoto touched it, he could borrow a little of Rin’s warmth and light, too. 

Kisumi gets Makoto’s first kiss, as well. It’s oddly natural, after, to let Kisumi hover around, draping himself on Makoto and dragging him away from Haruka, and before he realizes it, they’re already secretly an item. 

Haruka knows, of course. He doesn’t say anything, but that’s probably because Makoto never so much as breathes about how Haruka always pauses at the sight of red scarves, either. 

**\-----o0o-----**

Tachibana Makoto sometimes eats stale breads for breakfast when it’s nearing the end of the month and he only has a thousand yen left in his wallet, sometimes forgets to separate his colored laundry from the white ones, and does late night grocery shopping for cheaper ingredients. It’s a normal life, too uneventful and so very much unlike Haruka’s and Rin’s, who are sprinting for a goal much larger and much farther than Makoto could ever dream to reach. 

“So,” Rin grins at him, his face on Makoto’s laptop screen a little grainy no thanks to the lousy internet connection hindered by the typhoon coming closer. “Tell me about your week.” 

Makoto thinks of his classes, of the bad weather all week, of assignments and additional works, of the university swimming club opening recruitment. “Nothing much,” he answers, because his life is just that ordinary. “I have tons of homework, that’s nothing new. Child Psychology class was cancelled, will be cancelled next week, too, I think the Professor is abroad. I had English quiz last Friday, and that’s it.” 

On the screen, Rin is shaking his head, looking amused. “You just summarized an entire week in three sentences.” 

“Well, there really is nothing much happening right now.” Makoto pauses. “Oh. I didn’t burn my omurice tonight.” 

“Huge news,” Rin teases, and Makoto laughs. 

“Shut up.” 

**\-----o0o-----**

Rin confesses in the midst of an ocean of lights. 

Honestly, it isn’t like Makoto expects anything less from Rin. The redhead is a romantic, after all, even if he’d rather bite his own tongue and admitting it. It’s more that Makoto does not expect it at all—he’d given up, somewhere in middle school, somewhere between dating and breaking up with Kisumi and realizing that it’d take him a very long time to forget about his ‘crush’ on Rin. He’d always thought it would be Haruka, or even Sousuke, or maybe Nagisa, because even Nagisa is simply brighter than Makoto, and wouldn’t Rin like someone who is as bright as he is? 

But after everything Rin does, after the grand-gestures he reserves for his friends, this—the confession—feels starkly different. Still grand, still romantic, the way Rin has always been, but also, unlike how Rin is, so very  quiet. 

It’s three days before Christmas when Rin calls and demands him to come out and meet him at the Tottori Sand Dunes, stubborn and urgent the way he’d been back when he asked Makoto to help him tame a kitten. Makoto shows up with scraps of Christmas paper decoration still stuck in his hair, and Rin’s voice dissolves into laughter as he reaches up to pry it off the brown strands. 

The sand dunes, when they walk in, are alight with colorful lights that blinded the corners of Makoto’s eyes. 

“There are things,” Rin says, “that we should talk about. A lot of things.” He stops in the middle of an ocean of tiny lights of bright green-red-gold-blue, peppering the sand under their feet in some sort of haphazard pattern, trying to match similar tiny lights pinned up on the winter night sky above their heads. “But Haru told me that there would be time, later. To talk about your plan. Your future. What you wanted.” 

“About Tokyo?” Makoto asks, confused. “About being a swimming coach?” 

Rin shakes his head. “About you and swimming, yeah,” he answers, a tad bit too pensively, and Makoto grows even more confused. “But there’d be time, later. Sousuke said so, too. So I’m not going to talk about it, now.” 

Makoto considers him, takes in the small smile on Rin’s face, notes its slightly trembling edges. “Rin?” 

“I like you,” Rin tells him, back and shoulders straight even as the syllables come out somewhat shakily. “I like you, and fuck, I should probably keep quiet about it, but Sousuke’s right—Australia and Tokyo _are_ far, and I don’t—Haru told me you dated Kisumi, back in middle school, and I just thought, maybe you’d find someone in Tokyo, but if. If I could—tie you in some sort of a bond, if you liked me back, then it would be fine. Somehow.” 

It’s humbling, to say the least, that this extraordinary boy who stands before Makoto, who is just as blinding as the lights that surrounded him, who blazes through life like a comet, whose passion burns brighter than a thousand suns, who is the very definition of movement and change, is looking up at Makoto with something akin to dread mixed with painful hope. _Why me_ , Makoto thinks, because he isn’t Haruka or Sousuke or even Nagisa and Rei, because he is just Tachibana Makoto, and he is just a _boy_. 

But there would be time for that, too, later. Because what matters now is Rin, Rin and his _I-like-you_ , Rin and the little lights that glow in the sand, and Makoto chokes out a laugh, overwhelmed with disbelief and sheer happiness and fondness and love. 

“Yeah,” he says, doesn’t care when his voice shakes hard enough that his answer comes out in a whisper. “I like you, too, Rin.” 

Like the lights scattered under their feet, Rin’s whole face lights up, bright and blinding, and he steps forward, reaches out to touch Makoto’s cheek gently. 

“Yeah?” he repeats, his grin holding the same giddy curve he always has seconds before he dives into the water. Makoto forgets to breathe for a second, before his own hand comes up, shakily catches Rin’s fingers and holds on tight. 

He closes his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, and when Rin’s arms close around his shoulders, Makoto lets himself surrender completely and takes what he’s been given. 

**\-----o0o-----**

Yazaki Aki, with tiny-looking shoulders and a height that barely reaches Makoto’s chin when the two of them stands straight, still has her sunflower smile and her determined gaze when Makoto accidentally bumps into her on his second semester of university. 

He calls her Yazaki-san, because none of them are in grade school anymore. She elbows him gently and tells him to call her Zaki-chan, because they’re friends, so he tells her to call him Makoto in return. She comes with him the next time he meets up for dinner with Haruka, and somehow, after that, Aki becomes another permanent addition in the life Tokyo has given him. She stays when Haruka starts going out of Tokyo for swimming meets, shares his misery over campus assignments and strict lecturers, and goes with him for coffee when they both have morning classes. 

She also goes with him to the post office, peering over his shoulders as he writes down Rin’s name on the small package he’s going to send to Australia. “That’s for Matsuoka-kun?” 

“It’s like a joke,” Makoto says, chuckling. “I send him random things I find over the month, things that remind me of him, somehow. Rin likes to try and guess why.” 

Aki clasps a hand over her mouth, soft laughter spilling out. “You’re more of a sap than I thought, Makoto-kun.” 

Makoto laughs sheepishly. “Maybe it’s because we’re on a long-distance relationship. I’m not—I don’t think I’d be so conscious about finding things that remind me of Rin, if I get to see him every day.” 

“Well, they do say that distance keeps the relationship interesting,” Aki says, handing the post office worker her own package, addressed to her grandmother in Iwatobi, before turning her attention back to Makoto. “It’s taxing, though. Long-distance relationship, I mean.” 

Makoto pauses, because the smile on Aki’s face indicates something else. “Zaki-chan?” 

“Ah, I’m sorry! I’ve been in that kind of relationship before, I was just—“ she smiles her sunflower smile, ducking her head. “It didn’t work out quite well, so.” 

Makoto stares and stares, at how the corners of Aki’s mouth curves up hesitantly, the way her lowered eyebrows hide something that spells out bitterness, the way she keeps her arms close to her body. He wonders what happened, wonders if Aki’s relationship had anything similar to his and Rin’s, wonders if Aki had faced the same distance Makoto faces now, between Tokyo and Australia. 

“It’s alright,” he gives her a smile, just to watch the sunflower smile returns brightly, and finishes writing Rin’s address on the package. He reads it over again, making sure he writes everything correctly, and pauses, spends seconds to wonder if he’s doing everything right, if he’s going to make this work at all. 

He thinks of his last mail to Rin this morning, the one Rin still hasn’t replied. 

_It’s alright_ , he tells himself, and gives in to the urge to scrawl tiny _I-love-you_ on the bottom left corner of the package. 

**\-----o0o----**

Every Sunday night, Rin calls him via skype, and they talk. 

It is one routine between them that they are both determined to keep up. Makoto knows Rin is busy with training, knows that what little time Rin has for his own should not be spent only to contact Makoto, and  so the skype call once a week is something not unlike a compromise, he supposes. But it’s a routine, and it’s the only time he gets to talk to Rin directly, with Rin’s attention completely his and his alone. 

He mails Rin a lot, sends him pictures and random things he finds interesting. Sometimes, Rin replies Makoto’s mails with words that are short and compact but warm, and Makoto would reply back, and it’s like the distance between Tokyo and Sydney is exactly the same as the distance between Makoto’s apartment and Haruka’s. 

A lot of times, Rin doesn’t reply, and Makoto spends one or two days with no contact whatsoever from his boyfriend. It’s vexing, sometimes, that it feels like Rin is ignoring him even though he knows it’s not the case. It’s nothing out of ordinary, nothing much different from how their dynamics have been for years, but somehow Makoto feels like this is vastly different. Maybe it’s because he kind of has the right to demand Rin’s attention now, and he’s much too aware that he can’t abuse that right. 

Most of the times, though, when he sends messages that never get any reply, he just feels exhausted. 

**\-----o0o-----**

“Zaki-chan’s cooking,” he tells Rin on one of their skype call date, watches Rin absently bites on the tail of an orca plushie. “Haru’s coming over in five minutes, so don’t fall asleep yet, okay Rin?” 

“I had coffee,” Rin responds, but he looks exhausted and his eyes keep drooping down. “Garbage coffee, obviously, since it doesn’t do shit.” 

_Don’t fall asleep on me_ , Makoto wants to say. Wants to demand Rin to stay up long into the night and talk about everything and nothing. Instead, Makoto says, “Do you want to hang up and go to sleep?” 

Rin throws him an irritated glare. “And why did I even call you in the first place then?” 

“You look exhausted,” Makoto points out lamely, and then lies, “I don’t want to keep you up.” 

“Don’t be stupid, it’s Sunday night,” Rin says, in a voice that brooks no argument, and Makoto ducks to hide a smile, because Rin is saying _‘Sunday night’_ in a way that makes it sound special, like he’d hate to miss out on their skype call session.  “Is Yazaki spending the night or what?” 

“No, she has a friend living down on the second floor, she said she’d sleep there.” 

In the end, Rin falls asleep when Makoto leaves to open the door and let Haruka in. Haruka makes a light snort when he sees Rin on Makoto’s laptop screen—a mess of red hair covering half of Rin’s face, his cheeks smushed against the orca plushie he’s sleeping on, eyes completely shut and mouth slightly open with a hint of drool on the corner of his lips. 

“I left for a moment,” Makoto says, torn between a sense of amusement and being dumbfounded at how fast Rin falls asleep. He turns to Aki when she comes into the living room, a tray with three big bowls of donburi in her hands. “And he was talking before I told him I’d be right back.” 

“He looks exhausted,” Aki comments, eyes curious as she peers down at the screen, before looking up at Haruka and smiles her sunflower smile. “Good evening, Nanase-kun.” 

“Yeah,” Haruka replies, hands almost automatically reaching out to help Aki with the tray, but Aki obliviously passes him, bends down and sets the tray on the kotatsu. Haruka stares at his own stretched hands, then at Makoto, and Makoto sympathetically smiles. Haruka tries harder nowadays, really, but he’s never been very good at expressing his thoughts and emotions, and when it comes to Aki, he simply gets very, very awkward. 

Makoto thinks it’s adorable. Rin thinks Haruka needs to be more forthcoming to the girl, but Rin also laughs at Haruka’s attempts when he tries, which is kind of horrible, if Makoto doesn’t recognize fondness in Rin’s eyes whenever he hears about Haruka’s latest Aki-related blunder. 

They eat; Makoto doesn’t turn off his laptop, doesn’t disconnect the call either. Rin starts into wakefulness when Aki brings out ice cream for dessert, spends minutes grumbling at Makoto about how Rin hates him for not waking him up and threatening Haruka that he’d better not screen-capture Rin’s less-than-elegant sleeping pose and send them to Sousuke. Haruka just rolls his eyes and tells Rin to go to sleep. Makoto agrees, albeit a bit reluctantly, and Rin seems to be exhausted enough not to argue. 

“Sorry,” he tells Makoto sheepishly. Makoto smiles, nodding, and Rin mouths a silent _I-love-you_ , grinning, before waving and cutting the call. 

Makoto leans back as his laptop blinks back to his desktop background and skype window, only looking up when he hears Haruka’s quiet snort. “Haru?” 

“You took a picture.” 

Aki blinks. “Makoto-kun,” she says, mock-horrified. Makoto laughs, absently tapping at his phone, and watches as it sends a mail to Sousuke. 

“Well,” he says, grinning. “He _did_ fall asleep on me.”

**\------o0o------**

_Traitor_ , is Rin’s first message the next day, when Makoto wakes up. _I don’t trust you anymore, Tachibana. And everyone says you’re the innocent one._

Makoto smothers his grin into his pillow. _Whatever you mean by that, Rin?_  

_Sousuke just called me and laughed for five minutes straight before hanging up. Bastard._ And Makoto could hear Rin’s grumble in his ears, fond if laced with a hint of embarrassment. _He mostly laughed about the orca plushie. I’m sleeping with the penguin one from now on._  

_I’ll make sure to screencap it and send it to Nagisa_ , Makoto shoots back, momentarily forgetting that he needs to get up and hurry to his first class, choosing to remain in the sleepy haze in the cocoon of his blankets where he could easily pretend that they’re both still high school students, that the distance between them only covers several stations separating Samezuka and Iwatobi. 

_Have you been talking to Nagisa a lot lately? Did he infect you with evil_? The prompt reply coaxes a lazy laugh out of Makoto. _Speaking of which, he’s been hounding me to come back for Christmas and New Year’s._  

Just like that, and something in Makoto’s stomach lurches. _You’re not?_  

This time, the word _‘typing’_ blinks under Rin’s name and stays there longer. _I don’t know. I’m not sure. There’s a professional athlete Coach wants me to meet over Christmas dinner or something, he’s keeping it a secret, and I can’t be sure of my schedule yet. I’ll try to come home, though it’d probably be brief._  

Makoto stares at the rows of words, thoughts and plans jumbling in his head, of going back to Iwatobi for Christmas and New Year’s, of meeting up with Rei and Nagisa and everyone for hatsumode, of eating the New Year’s soba at Haruka’s place, of visiting Coach Sasabe after New Year’s and maybe calls up both Iwatobi and Samezuka swim clubs for relay races—Rin would like that, he thinks, but Rin might not even be home, so why bother? 

He doesn’t know how to answer, so he settles for: _You didn’t tell me anything about this._  

_Yeah, it sort of escaped me every time we skyped. Sorry._  

Makoto wants to type _it’s okay_. Or maybe _you should tell me something important like this the moment you know about it_. Or maybe _I want to see you, please come home for Christmas, isn’t it supposed to be a couple’s holiday, you can’t not be home on Christmas_. 

He can’t. He has the right to, he knows. He also knows he shouldn’t. 

There are miles and miles and miles separating Tokyo and Sydney, even more miles bridging both cities to Tottori, and for the first time since he saw Rin off at the airport, Makoto feels the distance between them so acutely, and he thinks of the ocean raging and the fishermen in the boat, desperately reaching out towards the shore, only one kilometer away and yet—

_It’s fine. Keep me updated on that, okay?_  

And yet, Makoto muses, maybe for them, the distance to the shore is as far away as Tokyo and Sydney. 

**\-----o0o-----**

Rin doesn’t come home for Christmas. He doesn’t come home for New Year’s, either, much to Gou’s disappointment, because Rin promised her that he’d try to be home for New Year’s at least. Makoto and Haruka go back to Iwatobi for three weeks and rush back to Tokyo because Haruka’s coach wanted to begin an intensive training session in the face of the first high profile competition April that might be a chance for Haruka to make it into the National Team.

“What are you guys going to do after graduation?” this time, the question is directed to Nagisa, Rei and Gou when they come to the airport to see Makoto and Haruka off. It’s heartening to see the three faces before him light up and exchange certain glances among themselves, Makoto thinks, and wonders if his three younger friends also went through the same self-searching experience that he and Haruka did last year. 

“I will be pursuing a chemistry degree,” Rei says, chest puffing out in pride, but there’s still awkward naivete in his gestures, the slightest sign that the future is something that also scares Rei, somewhat. “There’s a scholarship for a university in England, but personally I have been thinking America might be a better choice—“ 

“You’ll do great,” Haruka tells Rei. “It doesn’t matter where. If it’s you, Rei, you’ll do great.” 

Rei blinks, eyes rapidly turning watery. “Haruka-senpai…” 

“That’s what I told him over and over!” Nagisa pouts, then brightens as he grins up at Makoto. “As for me, I’m going to try for the local university! I don’t like studying, but I think I want to try doing something with kids, too, Mako-chan. Like, kindergarten, maybe, or elementary school, so I can teach them how to make a time capsule!” 

And make sure no kid is ever left behind or feel like they don’t have any choice, Makoto hears between Nagisa’s words. “Yeah,” he says, squeezing Nagisa’s shoulder. “I think that’d suit you, Nagisa.” 

Gou snickers. “Can you imagine us having to call him Hazuki-sensei, though?” 

“Gou-chan, you’re so mean!” 

“What about you, Kou?” Haruka turns to her. “What are you going to do?” 

Gou has a secretive smile on her face, but it’s more certain than the ones that had been on Nagisa and Rei’s. “I’m going to Tokyo,” she announces, with a grin identical to that of her brother’s, confident if slightly brash, and Makoto finds himself admiring the certainty in her gestures, the courage in her eyes. “I’m going to be a nutritionist, or a physical trainer.” 

“Gou-chan just wants all the muscles.” Nagisa sticks out his tongue. “She’s going to fool many muscular young men and trap them—“ and then there’s a sound of a loud smack against Nagisa’s head. “Ow, Gou-chan!” 

“Stop antagonizing her, Nagisa-kun,” Rei sighs. 

The three wave both Makoto and Haruka off as they go past the boarding gates. Haruka is silent even after they settled on their seats, ready for the flight to Tokyo. Makoto turns to him, curious because for once he isn’t quite sure what Haruka is thinking. “Haru?” 

“Your university swim club,” Haruka starts, sounding somewhat hesitant, but then he turns to Makoto and looks straight at him. “Aki said they’re opening recruitments starting March.” 

Makoto blinks. He remembers a flyer he kept between the pages of his Children and Physical Education book, remembers Aki picking it up and asking him if he planned to sign up for the swim club. He remembers staring at the flyer, remembers considering to try, once again, remembers fingering the edges of the flyer before shoving it into the deepest corner of his desk drawer. “Oh. Yeah, I think I saw the announcement somewhere—“ 

“Makoto,” Haruka says quietly. “You should sign up.” 

“Ah,” he keeps his voice light, keeps the set of his shoulders relaxed, keeps his smile steady. It isn’t hard—he’s a great liar, he knows how and when to lie. “I’ll be really busy next semester, though, I’m not sure if I’d have time for clubs.” 

Haruka doesn’t reply, doesn’t look at Makoto, doesn’t call out on how Makoto averts his stare, either. He picks up the local newspaper they’d brought along and skips to the sports section instead, and leaves the topic at that. 

**\-----o0o----**

The first thing he does after stepping into his room and dropping his bag on the floor is pulling out his desk drawer to find the flyer. 

It’s a simple one—small, less elaborate and less beautiful than the one Haruka had done back in their second year of high school—with huge block letters that spell their university name and their swimming club, with a photo of their large indoor swimming pool slapped underneath. There was a list of the place and time for sign-ups, as well as contact persons’ numbers, and trial dates. There are quotes too, from three members of the team—those who got scouted from high schools and are now attending university with a sport scholarship. 

Makoto stares at it, hard, until the words blur, and remembers _I swim_. 

Except he doesn’t, anymore. 

The flyer’s crumpled into a ball in his hands, and with a resigned sigh, Makoto lobs it towards the trash can. 

He misses. 

**\-----o0o-----**

He texts Rin, short and simple: _Are you busy? Can we talk?_  

It takes almost half-an-hour before Rin replies: _I’m doing my assignments, did something happen?_  

Right, Makoto tells himself, because Rin isn’t living in Australia simply for swimming and training—he also has to keep up with his college work. So he types back instead: _It’s okay, it’s not important. I’ll tell you later._  

Rin’s reply is speedy this time. _Are you sure?_  

Makoto sends him the cute emoticon Ran likes to use—the one with yellow head and a blue cap, saluting out with a grin—and types: _Yeah_. 

Rin doesn’t reply again. 

**\-----o0o-----**

It’s not like he’s not busy, it’s quite the opposite, really. The more Makoto understands what he’s studying—physical education, children’s psychology, health education, childcare classes—the more excited he gets to work with children. He volunteers to help in a kindergarten, finds a part-time job in a  bookstore and manages to get stationed in the children section, and even agrees to tutor several elementary school kids privately. 

If he happens to take long glances at the pool building that he passes on the way to cafeteria almost every day, that’s another thing entirely. 

It’s not like he doesn’t swim, either. He still does—he goes to the public pool facility whenever Haruka gets any day off, spending hours doing laps of backstroke and breaststroke and freestyle back and forth. Aki comes with them sometimes, happily challenges Makoto and Haruka to a race from time to time. It’s a good and fulfilling life, Makoto thinks, and all things considered, he’s happy. 

And when he tells Rin that in one of their weekly Skype date, Rin’s face twists into a frown. 

“What?” Makoto laughs, almost nervously. “Why are you making that face?”

It’s unnerving how Rin’s stare could make him feel naked, even when it comes through his laptop screen. “No, nothing really, just—“ the line of Rin’s lips thins. “Are you sure?”

Makoto blinks. “What do you mean?”

Rin’s frown morphs into a thoughtful look. “I’m not saying that you’re lying—I know you enjoy it, working with children and all. You always look excited when you talk about them.” He grins almost roguely  when Makoto makes an embarrassed noise. “You do, and it’s cute, I like it.”

Makoto ducks his head lower, half-buries his face into the blankets bunching under his shoulders. “But..?” he prompts, and Rin sighs.

“I know it’s your choice, but—“ Rin pauses, hesitates for a second, and Makoto could see the exact moment he decided to plow on anyway. “Is this enough, Makoto? Are you satisfied?”

Something in Makoto’s stomach lurches. He laughs feebly, tries to ignore the awful sensation. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Rin’s eyes, red and bright and so full of life, regards him for a long, long time.

“I don’t know,” he says at last, but even through the crackle of Makoto’s speaker, his tone is nothing but knowing. “Why do you think I ask?”

** \-----o0o----- **

The thing is, Makoto is just a boy.

He’s not like Haruka, who belongs to the water, loving and loved by it. He’s not like Sousuke, whose had way more experience with a lot of other swimmers in the years he went to school in Tokyo, or had the capability to strive until he breaks himself. He’s not like Rin, who is born to run and rouse people into running, who lives to struggle and win and reach his dream. Tachibana Makoto is just a boy from a quiet town of Iwatobi, who is widely known for his cowardice and currently trying his best to survive Tokyo and university.

He doesn’t understand why his life is filled with so many stars—warm like Nagisa, elegant like Rei, amazing like Gou, twinkling like Aki, beautiful like Haruka, strong like Sousuke, and blinding like Rin. He’s none of them—they’re the stars, and Makoto is merely a boy with a telescope, eyes filled with wide-eyed wonder as he learns more things his friends could do in awe.

Why shouldn’t this be enough, then? The galaxy where the stars are, after all, is far out of reach.

Haven’t humans contented themselves with gazing the stars, anyway?

** \-----o0o----- **

That being said, there are times Makoto is well-aware that he’s lying to himself.

Because no matter how bright and warm and beautiful the stars are, they’re still too far, and standing here by himself is not a good feeling. It’s a ridiculous thought, he knows, but sometimes he wishes he was a star, too, if only because it would be easier to bridge these distance between them all, if only because it wouldn’t make him feel so left behind. 

It gets lonely, Makoto thinks, staring blankly at his phone, reading Rin’s last message, sent on Thursday night, which was a simple _Good night, Makoto, I love you_. 

It’s Saturday afternoon now. His phone is quiet. 

Makoto waits for the Skype call. 

**\-----o0o-----**

Haruka invites him to his university’s friendly swim meet with three other university teams.

Makoto tilts his head, lowers the gyoza he’s just snatched from Haruka’s plate. The meet is on Sunday, at Haruka’s university, and Makoto has a tutoring session in the afternoon, but he could still make it in time if he leaves before four. He peers at Haruka curiously.

“Haru,” he begins, “Did you ask Zaki-chan to come?”

Haruka huffs, giving Makoto an incredulous look as he sips on his drink, but there’s a faint shade of red across his cheeks. “That doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Ah,” Makoto replies lightly, knowingly. He picks up the gyoza again, takes a bite, and enjoys the flavor of vegetables and chicken bursting in his mouth. A waitress walks past them, throwing them a smile, and Haruka asks her to refill his glass. Makoto swallows his food, stretches the silence for another second, before continues, “Did she agree to come?”

“Makoto,” there’s a half-hearted warning tone in Haruka’s voice. Makoto chuckles, knows that that means Aki is also coming, and silently notes to relay the good news to Rin later.

That brings up another question, though.

“Are you sure you want me to come?” Makoto glances at Haruka, watches him pick up another piece of gyoza from his plate. “I mean, of course I’d come, but are you sure?”

Haruka gives him a look. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Well,” Makoto smiles sheepishly. “I mean, if I don’t come, then you’d have time with Aki. Just the two of you. That’s good, right?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Haruka repeats, still with the look, even as the faint shade of red returns to his cheeks. “I want you there.”

Makoto pauses, and for some reason, there’s a lump in his throat that constricts his next words. “Haru…”

Haruka turns his attention back to his plate. “Don’t be stupid,” he mutters again, clearly exasperated, and something warm spreads in Makoto’s chest.

“Yeah,” he smiles, almost giddily. “I know.”

** \-----o0o----- **

There’s a swimming goggles on the table when Makoto steps into Horio’s room, abandoned among several JUMP magazines and other knick-knacks. The sixth-grade elementary school kid grins at him unabashedly as he hastily tries to clear his table, explaining how he’d just had a few friends over, so everything is a mess, but he’d clean things up right away and then they could start with the tutoring session,  _Tachibana-san, are you listening?_

Makoto starts. His eyes flickers up to find Horio’s curious eyes, before turning back to the swimming goggles.

“Ah, yeah—it’s fine. Hey, Horio-kun—“ he pauses, clenches his hands so he doesn’t reach out to take the goggles. “I didn’t know you swim.”

Horio blinks. “Oh, that? No—that’s just,” the kid laughs lightly, the sound bouncing off the corners of the room. “I tried swimming, a few months ago. Hige’s thinking to try swimming too, so when he’s here earlier, he asked to see my old swimming stuff, and I pulled that out of the box.”

Makoto turns to the kid, puzzled. “You’re—not swimming anymore?”

Horio shrugs. “Nah, swimming’s not really my thing, I guess. I got bored easily. I like running better.”

“Oh,” Makoto says, so softly it’s almost a breath, and he reaches out, touches the goggles with the tip of his forefinger, runs it along the edges of the plastic frame. “So you don’t use this anymore.”

“I wouldn’t have noticed that I still have it if it wasn’t for Hige asking.” Horio pauses, peers up at Makoto curiously. “Do you want them, Tachibana-san?”

Makoto blinks. “Huh?”

“You can have them if you want. It’s fine, I need more space to store my stuff, so.”

He brings the swimming goggles back home, takes out the box of random knick-knacks he’s going to send to Rin this month, and put it there with a bar of wasabi chocolate, an advert flyer of Spontania’s concert, a shark keychain, three packages of sample tissues he’d gotten in Shibuya, a bright pink scarf and a photo of Haruka and Aki in Makoto’s living room, heads ducking close together as they stare at a tablet.

He wonders if the swimming goggles is the same brand that Rin used when he was little. It has small red stripes on the plastic frame; a thing he remembered was on Rin’s goggles when he was little as well. It’s slightly too big for an elementary school kid, and Makoto absently pulls on the strap and thinks of Rin’s habit before diving, thinks of how Haruka pulls his own goggles down, remembers Nagisa’s pink ones, and Rei’s ridiculous habit of pushing his goggles up like he does his glasses sometimes.

He smiles. He thinks he misses swimming together with everyone, maybe. It’s never just about swimming, for him.

** \------o0o----- **

In-between fifteen minutes break between his afternoon classes, Makoto likes to snag a cup of coffee at the small coffee shop Aki part-times in. Especially on the days when the winter wind is biting so strongly.

“That’d be four hundred and thirty two yen,” Aki says, deft fingers writing Makoto’s name on the coffee cup, her neck devoid of the red scarf she’s always loved so much. “Makoto-kun, are you coming this Sunday?”

Makoto blinks, half-dead brain scrambling to figure out what she is asking about. “Sunday?”

“Nanase-kun’s university swim meet?” Aki laughs, the sound tiny and tinkling. Realization dawns, and Makoto makes a sheepish smile. “Wow, things must have been tough for you to forget about it.”

“It’s not like that,” Makoto says honestly, because the academic year has just started and he hasn’t been that busy, yet. Maybe he needs to quit thinking too much about things he knows he doesn’t have sufficient capability of. Things that are mostly related to swimming. There’s an irony in there somewhere that makes the corners of his lips tug up humorlessly.

Aki looks at him closely. “Do you not want to come?”

“What? No, of course I’m coming, Haru wants me there, and it’d be great to see his race after so long.” Makoto tilts his head and grins, this time with a touch of teasing. “Did Haru invite you to come, too, Zaki-chan?”

Aki ducks her head, and Makoto watches in fascination as a soft shade of red spreads across her cheeks.

“Zaki-chan—“

“I’m not sure if I should come,” Aki says, voice nearly too tiny to hear. “Nanase-kun only mentioned it in passing, I’m not even sure if he actually invited me? I’d like to come though, it’s been a long time since I saw Nanase-kun compete in a race.”

“Ah,” Makoto answers with an almost knowing tone. “Do you want to go together, then? I’ve been to Haru’s campus before, so I’d know my way around.”

Aki hesitates, eyes darting to the shop’s front door, where the bell tinkling signals the arrival of a new customer. “Do you really think he wanted me to come?”

Makoto smiles. “He’d be really happy to see you there, Zaki-chan.”

Aki flashes him a hesitant smile, unable to answer to that because the new customer is sidling up the counter to order, and Makoto gives a small wave before making his way down to the takeaway counter to take his order.

** \-----o0o----- **

He texts Rin about his earlier conversation with Aki afterwards, about how Haruka might actually have a chance, about how Haruka had tried to invite Aki out, and how Aki wanted to come even though Makoto isn’t too sure if she wanted to come for the race or for Haruka or both. He waits patiently for five minutes, his coffee slowly cooling off in his hand, but Rin’s name on the top of his phone never blinks to ‘ _typing’_ .

He takes a breath and tries not to be disappointed. Rin would be in the middle of a class, or training, or something else, he’s sure—he can’t expect Rin to reply to all his messages quickly. Sydney is an hour ahead of Tokyo, and while it might not sound much, it still makes a difference. Rin would be up and about when Makoto isn’t, for example, or having lunch when Makoto is still trapped in class.

Little things that shouldn’t make a difference, but they do anyway.

Makoto sighs and goes to class, and definitely doesn’t check his phone every ten minutes.

** \-----o0o---- **

His evening goes much more unexpectedly, when he bumps into Yamazaki Sousuke at the grocery store.

“Sousuke!” he says, pleasantly surprised, and Sousuke turns his attention away from the slices of bacon samples on the grill manned by one of the store’s workers, tantalizing fumes wafting through the air. “It’s been a while!”

Sousuke makes an acknowledging noise at the back of his throat and flashes Makoto a small smile. “Makoto,” he says, in that quiet but warm way of his. His eyes sweep over Makoto for a moment, before he nods to himself. “You look good.”

Makoto scratches the back of his head almost self-consciously. “Ahaha, thank you. You look good, yourself, Sousuke.” He smiles, and watches Sousuke shrug before turning his attention back to the grilling bacons. “I didn’t know you’re in Tokyo.”

Sousuke hums. “Just for a few days.” Then he tilts his head back, almost lazily, with the slightest hint of confusion on the furrow of his eyebrows. “Rin didn’t tell you?”

Something in Makoto’s chest sinks slowly. “…no?” The word comes out weak, and Makoto has to take a quick breath before shaking his head and lets his lips curve up into a smile. “He probably forgot about it whenever we talk. Rin’s busy, after all.”

The look Sousuke gives him was half-calculating and half-searching, like he’s trying to figure out Makoto’s smile, like he’s trying to figure out what’s hanging in the air. The he turns back to the grill, the puzzling look smoothing away. “Oh,” he says, lightly. “I thought he’d have told you. I’m going to visit Rin in Sydney—“

Makoto starts, eyebrows going up in surprise. “You will?”

“Yeah. I’m staying in Tokyo for a while because Gou wants to look at universities—“ and there, Sousuke stops dead, eyes widening and hand going up to cover his mouth, and Makoto’s eyes bulge.

“Gou-chan is here?!”

“I was not supposed to say that,” Sousuke says hastily. “No, yeah, forget about that, don’t tell Rin, either, that won’t be a good idea.”

“Why didn’t she tell anyone? Where does she even stay—“ Makoto pauses, eyebrows furrowing, a disapproving settling over his face like he’s just caught his siblings pranking their neighbor’s cat. “Sousuke.”

Sousuke’s eyes slide over to the right, avoiding his stare. “It’s okay, I’m supervising. It’s why I’m staying in Tokyo for a few days—“

“ _Sousuke_ .”

“Fine.” Sousuke sighs, and mutters something that sounds like wow that’s worse than what the others told me, and runs a hand through his hair in a defeated gesture. “She wants to visit her boyfriend while she’s here, so we’re staying at Mikoshiba-san’s place, and she doesn’t want anyone to know because Rin would  _flip_ . I didn’t like it either,” he adds quickly when Makoto’s frown deepens. “But I only found out because I caught her packing the day before we went, and she would’ve gone anyway no matter what I said. So I told her that I’d go supervise her, or I’d tell Rin on her.”

Makoto’s frown still stays. “And she’s staying with Mikoshiba-san right now?”

“Mikoshiba-san gives her the guest room,” Sousuke says. “I stay with them as much as I can. It’s why I’m even here tonight.”

“Oh,” and finally, finally, the frown clears off Makoto’s face. It’s not like he doesn’t trust Seijuurou—on the other hand, he knows that Seijuurou wouldn’t do anything Gou doesn’t want to do, and Gou is way too smart to do stupid things. Still, now that he’s considered Gou as one of his best friends (and perhaps a little sister, in a way), his protective instinct flares up anyway. He supposes Sousuke shares the same feeling; he’s known her since they were kids, after all. “So Gou-chan and Mikoshiba-san are here, too? Why aren’t you with them?”

Sousuke stays silent for a long moment.

“Well,” he says at last. “I was with them. I got lost among the snacks shelves.”

Makoto stares at him.

“My phone is dead.” Sousuke adds.

** \-----o0o----- **

They meet up with Gou and Seijuurou at the entrance of the grocery store; Gou’s face splitting up with a bright grin once she sees him and Sousuke approaching.

“Makoto-senpai!” she beams, makes a beeline to give him a brief hug. “Oh, I’m so glad you found Sousuke-kun! We’ve been trying to find him for the last hour, where were  _you_ , Sousuke-kun, you promised not to wander around!”

Sousuke raises both of his hands in surrender. “You walked too fast.”

“We had a shopping cart, we couldn’t walk fast.” She gives him a pointed look. “You got distracted by snacks, didn’t you.”

“Well, it’s fine, isn’t it?” Seijuurou, being his usual jovial self, laughs boisterously and slaps Makoto on the back. “It’s been a while since I last saw you, Tachibana! I see you haven’t gained yourself more muscle mass, huh? Letting academic life eating you completely?”

It’s heartening, to see another one of his friends aspiring to reach the Olympics looking very good after not seeing him for some time. Makoto grins, because Seijuurou’s enthusiasm is contagious. “It’s great to see you, Mikoshiba-san!”

“You, too!” Seijuurou slaps him on the back again, heartily, before turning to Gou with bright, bright eyes. “Since we’re all together anyway, why don’t we go for a drink? My favorite  _izakaya_ is close by, let’s warm up a little!”

Gou makes a face. “And where are we going to leave all these groceries?”

“Or,” Sousuke speaks up. “We can get some alcohol and bring them back to Mikoshiba-san’s.” He turns to Makoto, and Makoto thinks his gaze turns considering for a hearbeat. “You’re coming right, Makoto?”

“Oh,” Makoto says, hesitant, because he’d wanted to call Rin tonight, even if it’s not Saturday and Rin might not even be at home. But then he remembers the last message he’d sent Rin, after their short texts of discussing Haru and Aki and mostly Rin sending him laughing emojis— _Can I call you tonight? After ten?_ and Rin’s answer of _I don’t know if I’d be home by then, I’ll let you know later?—_ and checks his phone to see if Rin’s left him any message.

There’s nothing. It’s almost nine, anyway. Rin is probably tied up with something.

“Sure,” he says with a smile, and pockets his phone back.

** \-----o0o----- **

In hindsight, maybe he shouldn’t have joined, because Sousuke has a competitive streak that’s probably worse than Rin’s, and Seijuurou has his way of jovially roping people into silly contests, which Gou wouldn’t voice any aversion to as long as she gets to stare at everyone’s muscles.

Trying to drink both Sousuke and Seijuurou under the table is a very, very bad idea.

“Really, though,” Seijuurou half-slurs against the kotatsu, one cheek smushed against the smooth surface as he stares up at Makoto with a puzzled look. “Didn’t think anyone could last longer than a year with Matsuoka.” He pauses, makes a face. “Rin. Because the other one is mine.”

Sousuke hides his snort behind his can of Highball. Makoto distantly notes that Sousuke’s been leaning too far on his left side, and if he keeps sitting like that, he’s probably going to fall. He tries to warn Sousuke about it, about falling, but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth, so he only manages to slur, “S’suke, fall,” before a bubble of laughter escapes his throat at the way he sounds.

Gou slaps the side of Seijuurou’s head gently. “Don’t say bad things about my brother,” she chides, even if it sounds more amused than irritated. She’s the only one sober enough to sit upright, at this point—Makoto just follows Seijuurou’s example and slumps against the kotatsu. Oh, Gou’s right, though, no one should say bad things about Rin, he should say something and defend Rin’s honor.

“He’s,” he begins, face scrunching up, mind chasing the hazy words forming behing the curtain of haze thanks to the alcohol. “Good boyfriend. Rin is. He sends me cats pictures. Chocolates.” Probably flowers, too, if they could survive the trip from Australia. Makoto wishes Rin could make the trip here, too. With the chocolates.

Gou looks at him sympathetically. “It gets kind of lonely, doesn’t it, Makoto-senpai?”

Makoto makes a long hum, and shakes his head. “Have Haru. Zaki-chan, too.” Then he slumps forward, and suddenly feels very sad about that. “Wish Rin’d r’ply to me more.”

Sousuke tilts even more to his left, squinting at Makoto, than nods in agreement. “Rin’s bad at it,” he says, then chugs down the last of his Highball. “Communication.”

Makoto just makes a sad noise, and Gou pats him on the head. “Busy. I should—shouldn’t bother him too much.”

Seijuurou harrumphs in dissatisfaction. “Complain!! Be a man, Tachibana!!” he half-hollers, and Gou sends her elbow against his right side until he yelps in pain and curls up into himself, directing a hurt look at his girlfriend.

“Don’t disturb the neighbors,” Gou says, patting Seijuurou’s cheek lightly until Seijuurou starts smiling dopily again, and Sousuke makes a grossed-out noise. “But I agree, Makoto-senpai. Oniichan won’t realize that he’s doing it wrong except you tell him about it. Communication is important in a relationship!”

“If you won’t, I will,” Sousuke threatens, but he’s slurring the words so badly it doesn’t even sound like one.

“But,” Makoto whines, but the rest of the words slip off his mind and he ends up staring at the kotatsu like it’s the most important thing in the world.

On his right, Sousuke finally tilts too far to his left and slumps uncomfortably on the floor.

Gou sighs that one sigh she makes when she thinks her boys are being stupid. “Sleep over, Makoto-senpai.”

** \-----o0o----- **

He wakes up with a slow, constant pounding in his head, and groans.

“You’re missing your first class,” Seijuurou’s voice comes,  sounding far too cheerful considering it’s nine in the morning and they’re both supposed to be having hangovers. Supposedly. Makoto groans once again, silently wonders where Sousuke is, and catches Gou humming a cheerful song from the kitchen.

He blinks up, pushes himself to sit up. There’s a blanket on him—apparently he’d passed out on Seijuurou’s floor last night, along with the still sleeping Sousuke curling up under the kotatsu, and probably Seijuurou, too, if the rumpled, sleepy look the older man has on his face is any indication. It’s bright outside, a promise of a rather warm winter day, but the thought of going outside to go home already makes his headache worse.

Makoto furrows his eyebrows, one hand going up to message his temples, and Seijuurou silently slides one of the three coffee mugs on the kotatsu over to him.

“Thank you,” Makoto rasps, hands winding around the mug, then clears his throat. “I’m sorry I ended up crashing here, Mikoshiba-san.”

Seijuurou grins. “Wouldn’t have gotten you into a drinking contest if I didn’t expect it.”

The corners of Makoto’s lips twitch up. The coffee is warm, and it tastes heavenly, sliding down his throat with the slightest bite of bitterness, enough to wake him up fully. It doesn’t really lessen the pain pounding at the back of his head, though.

“We should do this more often,” Seijuurou says breezily. “Next time, you should get Nanase to come.”

“I don’t think Haru’s into drinking games,” Makoto chuckles. He inhales the vapor of his coffee, letting the warmth fill his lungs, before making a blissful sigh.

The grin on Seijuurou’s face turns prideful at that. “Right? Gou makes the best coffee.”

Makoto hides a smile behind the rim of his coffee mug. “You know I’m going to have to tell Rin about this, Mikoshiba-san.”

Seijuurou shrugs. “You’re  _supposed to_ ,” he corrects, taking another sip from his own coffee mug. “You won’t, though. Not until Gou’s back home in Iwatobi, at least.”

“You sound so sure about it.”

The grin grows wider. “Because coming here is Gou’s own decision. If it were me asking her to come instead, you’d have told Matsuoka on me straight away.”

A comfortable silence falls over them; the distant noise of Tokyo’s early morning rush and Gou’s cheerful humming a background to Sousuke’s light snores. Makoto concentrates on enjoying his coffee, the headache still a constant pound with every sound that he hears, but he doesn’t mind much, considering the company.

“You know,” Seijuurou says, much quieter this time, and Makoto looks up at him. “I was expecting to see you at our universities’ swim meet earlier this week.”

Makoto stares almost blankly at him for a long time.

“Were you,” he says, feeling oddly detached about it.

“I asked around,” Seijuurou’s tone is carefully light. “I was surprised when the Captain said that they don’t have anyone named Tachibana in the club.”

The smile that curls on Makoto’s lips comes as easy as breathing. “I didn’t join the swimming club.”

Seijuurou’s eyebrows raise up. “I thought you said you were still swimming. The last time we met.” He scrunches up his face. “Four months ago?”

Makoto scratches his cheek, chuckling. “I didn’t mean in the swimming club, Mikoshiba-san.” He looks back down to his coffee mug, distantly realizing that Gou’s stopped humming in the kitchen. He wonders if Gou’s standing on the other side of the wall, quietly listening in to their conversation. “I didn’t mean competitively, no.”

Seijuurou makes a disappointed noise. “That’s a shame. You swim at a high level, too—it’d be great to see you in races.” He grins, raising his mug. “More representatives from Tottori.”

Makoto chuckles, almost self-deprecatingly. “Nah, compared to Haru and you guys, I’m way below your levels.” But he raises his mug anyway, with an easy smile. “I still go swimming on weekends, sometimes. When Haru has days off, or when Zaki-chan could accompany me.”

“Competitive swimming is different, you know that,” Seijuurou says, putting his mug back down on the kotatsu with a soft thud. “And here I thought you’d be the most enthusiastic one about it. Swimming with your friends, and all that. Out of the Iwatobi guys, you seem—“ he gestures with his hands vaguely. “You seemed like you enjoyed it the most. Swimming.”

“It doesn’t have to be competitive,” Makoto counters half-heartedly.

“It doesn’t,” Seijuurou agrees. “But you seemed to be enjoying it a lot, too. I’m surprised you didn’t join the club. You should consider, though. I heard they’re opening recruitments in March?”

Makoto stares at the black liquid swirling in his mug, remembers the crumpled flyer that bounces off the edge of his trash can, remembers how he never bothers to pick it off the floor afterwards.

“They are,” he replies, and Sousuke chooses that moment to groan into wakefulness. Seijuurou greets him good morning boisterously; seemingly not bothered by the much less enthusiastic grunts of responses that Sousuke gives.

Makoto tells himself to forget about it, and slides Sousuke’s mug of coffee over.

** \-----o0o----- **

He doesn’t remember anything about it until he comes home much later and charges his phone, turning it on only to receive several missed calls and messages notifications. Something in his stomach sinks low as he reads the messages; both regret and dismay for spending last night drinking with Sousuke and Seijuurou, and completely forgetting about Rin.

He should have kept his phone close to him last night.

The first one, sent twenty minutes to eleven pm, says,  _Sorry I took some time, I’m home though. Do you still want to call?_

The second one simply has  _Makoto?_ and the third one says,  _Makoto, are you busy?_ while the fourth one is a playful  _Maa-koo-toooo~~ are you reading these?_

Makoto swallows. Rin had obviously called him after sending the fourth message, because the fifth says,  _Is it a bad time to call? You didn’t answer, you are home, right?_ and both the sixth and seventh are two long messages of Rin apologizing and explaining why he’d forgotten to message Makoto and letting him know if he’d be available to talk, asking if Makoto’s angry and if Rin could call him anyway, because  _I really, really want to talk to you._

And then a series of missed calls after that, ranging from  eleven thirty to two am—Rin is nothing but stubborn—and Makoto thinks of one hour difference, throat swelling up at the thought of Rin losing sleep as he tried to reach Makoto in vain.

The last message says,  _Okay, either you’re asleep or you don’t want to talk to me now. If you’re asleep—I doubt it, you always keep your phone under your pillow, you wake up whenever it vibrates—text me ASAP? If you’re too mad at me, Makoto, please, let’s talk this out? Call me, or let me know when I could call you. Please._

He doesn’t hesitate on hitting the call button.

** \-----o0o----- **

They fight over the phone.

** \-----o0o----- **

Haruka stares at him over his laptop, expression unimpressed, even with the scowl-that-might-be-better-called-a-pout on Makoto’s face.

“You are both idiots,” he tells Makoto, and Makoto once again questions himself for seeking Haruka out to tell him about this when he perfectly knew Haruka is going to say that. So much for the hope of a counsel. “Call him and make up, don’t tell me how it goes.”

The corners of Makoto’s lips make a deeper downside curve. “You know it’s not that easy, with Rin.”

Haruka raises an eyebrow. “You’re thousands of kilometers away, what else could you do?”

And it still sends a pang through his chest, the reminder of how far Rin is from the rest of them. Makoto stares hard at his can of iced coffee, tries not to think about one hour difference, because Haruka is right. What else could he do? It’s not like he could fly off to Sydney whenever he wants.

Maybe he’s just not qualified for this. Maybe he’s just not good enough to keep up with the dynamics Rin brings into a relationship. Maybe all he brings to their relationship is frustration and confusion for Rin, and Rin probably doesn’t need that—

“Makoto,” Haruka says, and Makoto starts, looks up into Haruka’s knowing gaze. None of them says anything for a long while, until Makoto’s face morphs into one little wistful smile.

“You’re right,” he admits, and the set of Haruka’s shoulders relaxes, his attention sliding back to his laptop.

Makoto fiddles with his phone for a moment, bouncing the silly shark charm between his thumb and his forefinger until it gets caught on his middle finger, and bites his lips as he stares at Rin’s number.

** \-----o0o----- **

_When Rin picks up at the ninth ring, he sounds  slightly out of breath. “Makoto?”_

_It sends a smile curving up Makoto’s lips inevitably. “Rin? Is now okay?”_

_“Yeah—yeah, just a second, I’m just gonna—“ Rin’s voice grows fainter, this time, slightly muffled, and Makoto listens as he shouts out to someone in rapid English, spends a moment arguing about something, and then his voiceis back, clear as a day. “Sorry, I’m at the gym, spotting Oliver since he helped me out the other day, so I owe him one.”_

_Makoto’s mouth twists. “If you’re busy, I can call la—“_

_“No!” Rin cuts, hurried and urgent. “No, it’s okay, now is okay. I did ask you to call as soon as possible—it took you a while though. Uh. Are you—are you mad at me?’_

_“Um, no. I was out with friends last night, drinking, and um, I crashed at a friend’s? I only realized that my phone’s dead  when I got home just now, so—I’m sorry, Rin. I thought you were busy—“_

_There’s a faint exhale from the other side, thick with relief, followed by Rin’s laughter. “No, it’s my fault. I was trying to finish my assignments at the campus since I wanted to talk to you once I got home, but I got too into it that I completely forgot to let you know. You got the messages, right?”_

_“I did,” Makoto says, guiltily. “I’m sorry.”_

_Rin snorts. “If I hear one more sorry from you, Makoto, I swear to God.”_

_“But you stayed up trying to reach me until, what, three? You’re an athlete, Rin, you need your rest.”_

_“I couldn’t just sleep knowing that you might be mad at me. You can’t mother me about taking care of mysef, I’m the one worrying about whether or not you’re eating well.” The background noises fades, Rin’s probably out of the gym and standing in the hallway, leaning on the wall the way he always does when he’s waiting for someone to show up. There’s a sharp twinge of longing that goes through Makoto at the thought, and he closes his eyes, tries to breathe through it._

_God, he misses Rin._

_“Makoto?”_

_“Yeah,” Makoto answers, forces a smile and glad Rin isn’t here to notice how faked it is. “You were—you’re training, right? You should go back to the gym. Talk to you on Sunday night?”_

_Rin is silent for a long moment. Then Makoto hears a long, deep breath, followed by a rather harsh exhale. “Really. You were the one who wanted to call me in the first place yesterday. You’re just going to hang up now?”_

_Makoto frowns, because something in Rin’s voice clips. “You’re_ busy _.” Then he cringes, because that sounds almost like an accusation, like_ you’re always busy _instead of simply pointing out that Rin is currently busy with training. “I just—“_

_“Of course I’m busy!” Rin cuts in, the hint of annoyance and sarcasm thick in his voice, and Makoto knows this is Rin resorting to anger because it’s easier, it’s how Rin deals with things that troubles him. “I’m training to be a professional athlete and I have my own studies on top of that, I’m busy every day! I’ll always be busy, Makoto!”_

_Makoto inhales sharply. And maybe it’s the leftover headache from his hangover this morning, or maybe it’s simply the fact that he’s been holding this back for a long time, because yes, Rin is busy and he understands that he shouldn’t demand more of Rin’s time, but it still stings to have Rin pointing it out, and he blurts out without thinking, “Too busy to even reply to my messages, right?”_

_There’s a sharp bark of laughter from the other side. “Oh, so_ now _it’s a problem.”_

_“I know you gets really focused on your studies and training—“_

_“You know I’d set some time for you if you want to talk! I always do—I suck at keeping contacts with people through text messages and emails, and you know that, that’s why our Sunday Skype is important!” Rin’s voice raises. “But you—you always hold back on me, Makoto, you never really tell me   about important things going on in your life. You step back when I say I’m doing something, you say that it doesn’t matter when I offer to listen later after I’m done, you tell me how your week’s been in three sentences and you send me messages and pictures of the most mundane things—“_

_“Because I want to share those mundane things with you,” Makoto closes his eyes, and his voice hardens. “Because you’re miles away in Australia and I can’t show you things I think you’d like, and that’s—“_

_“But you keep the important things away.” Rin hisses. “You never told me that you were interested in joining your university’s swim club—I had to find out from Yazaki-san, and even then she told me that she’s not sure about it. You avoid it when I try to bring it up, you--“_

_“Is this what this is about?” Makoto’s voice is steel cold now. “The swim club?”_

_“It’s important to you!” Rin shoots back. “I tried not to push, I tried to be subtle about encouraging you to go for it, I waited for you to tell me about it, and you never did!”_

_“Maybe it’s not important.” And that’s a lie, Makoto knows, because the crumpled flyer is still there, abandoned in the corner of his room. It’s a lie, because Makoto’s stayed up late at night sometimes, staring at the crumpled flyer and wondering if he should try after all, but then he remembers that his capability has a limit. “I’m not interested in the swimming club, Rin. I don’t want to swim competitively, I’m not—I’m not like you or Haru.”_

_“Bullshit,” Rin says, harsh and bitter. “You swim at a high level, Makoto, you know that. You could even reach where Haru and I are if you want.”_

_“Not everyone wants the whole world in their palm.” Makoto says, voice on edge. “My dream is different than yours, Rin.”_

_“But that doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy swimming with everyone and proving yourself at the same time.”_

_He could hear Rin’s scowl, at this point. This is stupid. Makoto doesn’t even know what they’re fighting over by now, not even sure why they’re fighting when he’d called to make sure they’re okay in the first place. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have what it takes to keep swimming competitively.”_

_“That’s only what you tell yourself.”_

_“It’s the truth,” Makoto tosses back, and remembers the way Haruka moves ahead of him in the water, remembers how Haruka shines and slowly grows further away from his reach, remembers how easily Rin keeps up with Haruka. It’s not his place—he’s just an ordinary boy, he can’t shine like Haruka and Rin do. “It’s not my place.”_

_Rin growls in frustration. “Makoto—“_

_“I have to go,” Makoto says, ignores Rin’s sharp “Wait—“ and taps his phone to end the call._

** \-----o0o---- **

Sunday greets them with budding plums, little pink and white dots on the tips of branches of frozen trees. Makoto burrows into the one of the scarves Rin sent him from Australia, pretends that the scarf transfers the heat of Australian summer sun that’s probably scorching Rin now.

He hasn’t talked to Rin since their fight. Rin hasn’t tried to message him at all, either, probably still stewing in his anger. Makoto isn’t sure if he should poke him when he’s clearly angry, but most of all, he doesn’t want to start talking about what he’s sure Rin would want to talk about. When it comes to swimming, Rin gets thrice as stubborn as he usually is, after all.

“Makoto-kun!”

Makoto looks up and recognizes the familiar red scarf before his sight even settles on Aki. “Zaki-chan!” He grins, and the grin turns teasing when he sees that Aki is dressed up better than usual. “You’re late. Did you spend too long choosing what to wear?”

Aki blinks at him. “Oh, these? These are hand-me-downs from my roommate—I’ve been eyeing this skirt for a long time, so I might as well wear it. Does it look weird?”

“No, no! It looks cute on you.” Makoto chuckles. “It’s unusual for you to dress up like that, Zaki-chan, and it’s an important day for Haru, so I was just—wondering, I guess.”

Aki playfully punches him on the arm. “Don’t start playing match-maker on us.”

“Why not? I think you’d be a good couple, with Haru.”

Her laughter tinkles in the air, fading into the winter wind. “Silly Makoto-kun. Haven’t you ever heard the saying about how your first love would never come true?’

Makoto’s eyes widen.

“H-huh?!”

** \-----o0o----- **

Makoto spends the walk from the station to Haruka’s campus trying to pester Aki about her first love, because apparently she had a crush on Haruka ever since Haruka jumped into the river to get her scarf. He gets mostly laughter and light-hearted comments from Aki about it, though, because Aki thinks it’s just an old story, and nobody cares about elementary school crushes anyway.

Except Makoto knows Haruka would care, and he hopes Aki would still do, too.

“It was just a kid crush,” Aki says. “He looked super cool when he jumped into the river to get my scarf, even though it was stupid, I hope he got chewed out well after that because it was so stupid.” At the way Makoto couldn’t quite hide his flinch, Aki sends an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Makoto-kun.”

Makoto smiles crookedly. “He gave us quite a scare. I was glad that Rin was there—I wouldn’t have known what to do otherwise.”

“Oh yes, Matsuoka-kun was there too, wasn’t he?” Her gaze turns into one of curiosity. “Did you already have a crush on him back then, Makoto-kun?”

“Um,” Makoto says, ears bright red, and Aki smothers her giggles into her palms.

“That’s so cute! Is Matsuoka-kun your first love?”

“This isn’t about me,” Makoto protests weakly, but Aki ‘s tinny laugh continues as they cross the gate of Haruka’s campus, and there’s Haruka waiting under the tree, eyes expectant, and Makoto brightens. “Haru!”

“You’re here,” Haruka says, the slightest of hesitance as his gaze lingers a little on Aki.

Makoto stifled a knowing smile. “You didn’t have to come out and pick us up, I know the way around.”

“I wanted to,” Haruka answers quietly, looking back at Makoto now, a small smile playing on his lips. “Thanks for coming.”

Haruka leads them towards the sports building where the indoor swimming facility is. There are teams wearing different jerseys from Haruka, already—some of them are participants, some of them are simply there to scout out information. It’s a simple friendly swim meet, but the universities participating are the ones with high-ranked swimmers, it’s no wonder other teams come over to watch.

“Are you doing freestyle, Nanase-kun?” Aki asks, once they reach the pool stands. Makoto looks down and recognizes Haruka’s team down near the pool, stretching and warming up.

“100 and 200 meters,” Haruka answers, glancing down to where his team is, and hesitates. “I should go.”

“Good luck,” Makoto says, reaching out to squeeze Haruka’s shoulder. “You can do it, Haru.”

Haruka pauses. He holds Makoto’s gaze for a long moment, and then his eyes flick over to Aki before returning to Makoto. He takes a breath. “Makoto.”

“Hmm?” Makoto smiles.

“Watch me,” Haruka says, voice tight, and something Makoto can’t decipher underlining his voice. “And then think about it.”

Makoto blinks. About what, he wants to ask, but Haruka’s already turning around, his steps brisk as he strides down towards the stairs. Makoto turns questioningly to Aki instead, and finds her smiling as she watches Haruka off.

“Zaki-chan?”

“Oh, you know what it is, Makoto-kun,” finally, her eyes meet him, soft and understanding. “But it’s something you have to figure out yourself, don’t you think?”

** \-----o0o----- **

The whistle sounds, sharp and high, and Haruka flies.

The water makes way for him, embraces him in the way it doesn’t do for others, like a mother welcoming his son home. Makoto watches, enraptured, chest tight as Haruka surfaces and slices through the water as fluid as a dolphin, way ahead of the other swimmers in their heat. He watches as the water splashes and parts with each of Haruka’s stroke, watches as the tips of Haruka’s fingers open a way through the water. There’s something familiar that jumps in his chest—excitement, he recognizes, hope, and a tiny frightening thing he’s tried to squashed for a long, long time, hammering with each of his heartbeat:  _want_ .

_And here I thought you’d be the most enthusiastic one about it,_ Seijuurou’s voice echoes in his ears. _Swimming with your friends, and all that._

He wants to swim. He wants to dive on his back, wants to let the water carry him forward with every stroke of his feet and arms, and the thought sends restlessness through him, like an excess energy that suddenly spikes up with the need of being in the water, swimming with someone on the next line, racing.  He sees anticipation lining Haruka’s muscles with each stroke, and he misses that—misses the knowledge of having friends waiting for him to reach the finish line, misses the adrenaline that pushes him faster, misses the drive that makes him want to swim better—

Aki shouts out Haruka’s name, high-pitched and excited, and Haruka’s hand shoots forward to slap the wall.

Their surroundings explode in a crowd’s cheer, Haruka’s name in the air, chanted by his team and a group of their supporters down the stands, over and over again, and Makoto thinks of being one of them, thinks of diving into the pool and race against friends, coming out with smiles and laughter, and his chest tightens. He wants. He wants so desperately, even though he knows he won’t be at the same level at Haruka and Rin, even though he knows—

_Watch me,_ Haruka had said.  _And then think about it._

“I’m joining,” Aki says out of nowhere, and Makoto starts, turning to her.

“Huh?”

“Our university has a women swim club,” Aki flashes him a smile, almost giddy. “They’re recruiting next month, at the same time as the men swim club. I’m joining.”

Makoto stares at her for a long moment, before turning back to watch Haruka pull himself off the pool, barely keeping himself from stumbling back into the water when one of his teammates barrel into him with an excitement that rivals Nagisa’s. He closes his eyes, relishes the wave of want that goes through him, and thinks of the crumpled flyer on the corner of his room.

_Is this enough_ , he remembers Rin asking, and repeats it in his head.

Is this enough?

** \-----o0o----- **

He fakes a good reason to say no when Haruka and Aki start discussing dinner—there’s a restaurant near Haruka’s campus that serves good gyoza, and Aki’s eyes had brightened at the very mention of it—and Haruka stares at him with eyes that barely cover his panic.

Makoto grins.  _You’ll be fine_ , he doesn’t say, but Haruka understands what hangs in the air between them, because he blinks, takes a deep breath, and says, “I guess it’s just you and me, then, Yazaki.”

Aki looks at him in surprise. She hesitates, and Haruka’s shoulders tense as she fidgets with her bag, but then she nods to herself and smiles at Haruka. “That sounds great.”

Haruka relaxes visibly, and Makoto chuckles, reaching out to squeeze Haruka’s shoulder.

“Have fun,” he says. Haruka shoots him a dry look, and Makoto just grins.

** \----o0o----- **

The first thing he does when he gets home is opening his laptop and plays all the video files of Rin’s races in Australia.

He watches, over and over, at how Rin slices through the water with such confidence and force that’s different from Haruka’s own, but nowhere less fluid. He watches the way Rin’s spine straightens as he prepares to dive, the way his sharp strokes push him forward, the way his muscles tense as he pries open the water to slice through. This is effort, Makoto thinks, and remembers eleven-year-old Rin refusing Makoto’s offer to go home on bike in favor of running.

The clock says 8.47 when he finally looks up from his laptop, gaze falling to the old photo of his team, with Rin, after the fateful relay that brought them back together.

He  _wants_ . Oh, he wants.

He gets up and goes to the corner of his room, crouches before the lone crumpled flyer that he’s abandoned for the last month, considers it for a long minute before hesitantly reaching out to take it into his hand.

His laptop rings with a Skype call.

He smiles to himself. It’s Sunday night, after all.

** \-----o0o----- **

Tachibana Makoto is an ordinary boy with a telescope in his hands and a bunch of stars smiling down on him.

He can’t be a star, he thinks. But perhaps he’s allowed to hope to be a moon, instead. Or try to be one, if only in an attempt to be closer to the stars and not be left behind. Who knows, perhaps he’d meet more stars on his way.

With that in mind, he squares his shoulders and knocks on the door of the swimming club’s meeting room, an application form held carefully between his fingers.

** \-----o0o----- **

When the video call blinks to life, neither of them says anything.

At least Rin doesn’t look angry. Makoto isn’t sure if it’s a good sign or not, considering the exhaustion marring the lines of Rin’s face, clearly spelling that he isn’t looking forward to this Skype call. He wonders why Rin still calls, anyway, when he has all the rights to be mad, to be tired of Makoto’s wrong choices, to not want to bother anymore.

His fingers itch to reach out and touch the screen, so he draws them into fists and takes a deep breath.

“Zaki-chan,” he says with a small smile. “Told me that first love never comes true.”

Rin’s eyebrows taut. “What.”

“You are mine.” Makoto says, and it feels a little bit like confessing all over again, because his face is burning, his heart is hammering against his ribs and his throat is clogging up and the words stubbornly hang to his tongue. “My first love, I mean. But Zaki-chan said that, and I was wondering if it might be true.”

He could see the way Rin’s gaze harden, could pinpoint the exact second Rin starts to open his mouth to counter, and cuts in before he could say anything: “I won’t begrudge anything if you don’t want to bother with me again, Rin.”

Rin looks like he’s at lost. “What are you—“ then he cuts himself short, and Makoto sees a myriad of emotions flit across his face, catches frustration and exasperation and disbelief, and feels something in his chest sink because those were never good. He fiddles with the crumpled flyer in his hands, tries to smooth them back despite knowing that he can’t, and wonders if this is what their relationship is like, now.

Creases and crumpled, half-torn in several edges.

“Makoto,” Rin says, and Makoto looks up to see him shaking his head tiredly. “I am not breaking up with you.”

_Maybe you should be_ , Makoto doesn’t say, because all he does is dragging Rin down and bugging him when he’s busy, but he still wants Rin so badly anyway. He wants a lot of things, too, even if he isn’t sure if he should try getting them at all.

On the screen, Rin narrows his eyes. “Do you? Want to break up with me?”

“No,” slips out of Makoto’s mouth like a reflex, almost too desperate. “No, that’s not—“

“Then don’t say weird things,” Rin cuts in, and Makoto thinks he hears a relieved tone lacing his voice. “I was—we were mad at each other, but that doesn’t mean I want to break up with you, idiot.”

Makoto closes his eyes, savors the relief that spreads through his chest. Not quite though, not yet, because they aren’t okay, yet. “Are you still mad at me, Rin?”

“So much,” Rin grouses, and Makoto watches him move aside, pulling something from somewhere off the screen—a small box that rattles with its contents—oh.

“This arrived this morning.” Rin says, the tips of his fingers running across the box before opening it carefully. He fishes out some of the contents Makoto remembers putting in the box: the three packages of sample tissues. “I couldn’t figure out why you’d send me sample tissues, and then I remember Shibuya, and I think we spent more than three little packages of sample tissues in the station’s toilet—“

“Rin!” Makoto’s laughter bubbles up, tickling the back of his throat, and the memory of Rin’s hands clutching onto his shoulders and muffling moans into the crook of his neck in Shibuya station’s public toilet shouldn’t make him laugh, really.

Rin throws him a playful scowl. “What, you’re the one sending these to me.” He puts aside the sample tissues and fishes out the bright pink scarf. “Oh, shit. How do you find these things?”

“Zaki-chan takes me around Harajuku sometimes,” Makoto grins. “I found it in one of the back alley shops, and I just had to buy that.”

Rin points at him. “I hate you.”

“You don’t have to worry about Nagisa trying to pull the scarf off and finding the hickies I left.”

“Who taught you to talk like that?” Rin sniffs haughtily, and Makoto laughs again. He watches Rin goes through Haruka and Aki’s photo, lets Rin rant off a little about how Haruka wouldn’t get anywhere with her if he just pines quietly, and laughs again at the face Rin makes at the tacky shark keychain.

And then Rin pulls out the swimming goggles, and his laughter peters off.

Rin stares at the goggles for a long time, and when he turns back to Makoto, his eyes are soft.

“You thought about it a lot, didn’t you.”

Makoto takes a breath. He thinks of Aki’s expression earlier in the day, bright and excited at the prospect of joining the swim club. He thinks of Nagisa and Rei and Gou, and their determined faces the last time he saw them together. He thinks of Haruka, embraced by the water like it was where he belongs, and thinks of Rin, who forces the water to make way for him. He thinks of himself, of the crumpled flyer, of the way something in his chest leaps whenever he spares a glance at the university’s swimming club activities.

“I tried not to,” he admits honestly. “Because I know I have limits, and there are gaps between what I want and what I could do. But I want it anyway. I wanted it, back when we were in high school.” He pauses, replays the memory of Rin pulling a chair and settling down before him in a hotel room, gazing straight at him as he asked Makoto about the future and scouts, and draws strength from the happiness it brings. “Everyone else seems to know exactly what they want to do. I do, too—I think I’ve found what I want to do. But I want other things too, and sometimes it gets unbearable. Like when I watched Haru’s race today, or when I see the swimming club’s recruitment flyer. When I rewatched all your races, Rin.”

He closes his eyes, takes a shaky breath.”And I think—I think I still want it, now. I’m—I don’t think I want the world, not like you do, Rin. I love working with kids, I still want to be a Coach. But I don’t want to stop swimming with everyone, too.”

There’s a small smile curving up Rin’s lips. “I wish you’d have told me about it.” His eyes meet Makoto’s own. “Back in high school, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Makoto says quietly, because even now, he’s nothing but a scaredy-cat. “I’m—glad I could tell you now.”

Rin lets out a long exhale, one that sounds like he’s just let go of something heavy off his back. It’s funny that Rin is the one who does that, when it’s Makoto who feels like he’s dumping off what he can’t bear at Rin. “I’m glad you finally told me about this.”

Makoto smiles at him humorlessly. “We’re not doing this whole communication thing very well, are we?”

“Considering how I handle other relationships that I have with people? I’m trying much harder when it comes to this.” Rin grins, one hand gesturing back and forth between him and Makoto. “I’ve never been good in doing the whole communication thing in the first place. But I know that us—this long-distance relationship we have going on? It’s a challenge, and I realized that when I made the decision to date you. So I—mostly I tried, and made mistakes, like forgetting to reply to your messages for days—“

“But you’re busy,” Makoto cuts in guiltily. “I shouldn’t mind—“

“You shouldn’t, maybe.” Rin shrugs. “But you do mind, and you have the right to feel so, Makoto. This communication thing isn’t going to work out well if you’re the only one trying to keep a constant presence in my life.”

Makoto looks away. “You don’t like being bothered when you’re doing things, though.”

Rin runs a hand through his hair, thoughtful. “I’m the kind who throws all my attention to what I’m currently doing, that’s true. Doesn’t always mean that it’s a good thing.” He catches Makoto’s eyes again, and grins. “Besides, even when I’m busy, getting messages from you makes me happy. I mean, as long as you don’t send me twenty consecutive messages.”

“Then tell me when you’re busy,” Makoto says. “I’m never sure what you’d be doing, most of the times—I don’t know if sending you random messages would bother you, or if I should message you again if you don’t reply. Just—let me know if you’re busy, let me know when you’d be not busy, or when it’d be okay for me to message you. I—want to be a part of your daily life, too, Rin.”

Rin ducks his head. “Yeah. I—yeah.” His voice shakes a little at the last syllable, and the tips of his ears are red. “I’ll do that. I’ll—try harder.” Then his tone drops, almost a mumble, “I want to make this work, with you.”

Makoto smiles, feeling several knots in his chest tugging loose. “Thank you, Rin.”

Rin makes a non-committal noise at the back of the throat, scrubbing his face with the back of his hand before looking back up at Makoto, eyes defiant even with the last of the pale crimson dusting his cheeks. “You’ve got to promise me something, too.”

“Promise?”

“That you’d think about it.” Rin says. “About what you want, despite what you think you could do. Because you have it in you, Makoto—the talent, the drive, the ability. You could be aiming for the world with us, with  _me_ , but I know you’ve found something you like better, something you want to do, and I think it’s amazing, too. But that doesn’t mean you should abandon the things you want, either.”

Makoto’s breath catches. “Rin…”

“You’re one of the bravest people I have in my life,” Rin says, the corners of his lips stretching out into his patented Matsuoka grin—one that always makes Makoto feel wilder, more reckless, more capable. “I’ll be damned if I let you stop running.”

** \-----o0o----- **

Two days after Makoto handed in his club application form to the swimming club, Sousuke goes to visit Rin in Australia. Makoto sees him off at the airport, together with Mikoshiba and Gou because Gou’s flight back to Tottori is only four hours after Sousuke’s, and Sousuke had agreed to bring several stuff Makoto wants to give Rin as an exchange for keeping his mouth shut about Gou, too.

“I heard from Haru,” Sousuke says, when Makoto hands him the small box with the newest knick-knacks he’d accumulated for Rin. There are dried flowers in the box, as well as some wasabi KitKats, glow-in-the-dark cats stickers, movie ticket stubs, and a small planner with dates circled on it, either indicating Makoto’s plans to visit or reminders for Rin to try to come home and visit. “You’re joining the swimming club, huh?”

Makoto smiles sheepishly. “Sounds stupid after stubbornly not joining in the last year?”

Sousuke shrugs. “Rin always said that you’d be back to swimming competitively, sooner or later.” He jostles Makoto good-naturedly. “I believed him. Believed in you, too. Guess Nanase and the others did, too.”

Makoto looks up at him in surprise. “You did?”

“Anyone could see that you enjoy swimming, Makoto,” there’s a small smile playing on Sousuke’s lips now. “I might not know you as well as Rin does, but I’ve known you for a long time, now, and most of the time we meet at the swimming pool. I’ve watched you swim for many years, and honestly, I can’t imagine you not swimming at all.” He pauses to take the box from Makoto’s hands. “You’re a great swimmer.”

“I’m—“ Makoto trails off, at loss. “I just—want to swim with everyone, is all.”

Sousuke nods. “It’s where your place is. It’s only natural.” He taps the box once, this time with a growing smirk on his face. “Did you put a copy of your application form in here?”

Just like that, and Makoto’s face burns. “Um.”

Sousuke barks an amused laugh. “You two are so gross.”

They all wave him off to the boarding gate—Mikoshiba yells at Sousuke to tell Rin that he can’t wait to race Rin again, and “maybe next time we could all race each other, it’s been some time!” with loud, hearty laughter and a firm hand clapping Makoto’s back. Sousuke raises an arm as a last goodbye, and they all watch him disappear through the lines of people moving towards the boarding gate.

Gou leans slightly against Makoto’s side, and says sweetly, “Thank you, Makoto-senpai.”

Makoto laughs. “Please don’t do this again, Gou-chan. Lying to Rin is scary.”

“I wouldn’t have asked you if I know you couldn’t do it.” Gou grins, nearly identical to the way her brother grins, as she flits to his other side and settles against Mikoshiba’s arm. “It’s nice to see you have things figured out, too, Makoto-senpai. You look much  more alive, now.”

Mikoshiba claps him on the back again, face bright. “It’s  going to be nice to have  you on races from now on!”

“Ah—that’s—“ Makoto chuckles, almost sheepish. “Whether or not I’d race on swim meets would depend on how my time is, against the rest of the club, so there’s no guarantee I’ll be on races yet—“

“You’ll do it though,” Gou says absently, and there’s something in the casual way that she says it that reminds Makoto of Rin. “Right, Makoto-senpai?”

He is an ordinary boy, with a bunch of stars smiling down at him as he clutches his telescope tighter and tries to reach out to them.

Makoto smiles.

“Yeah. I will.”

** \-----o0o---- **

“Two, today,” Aki says, pushing two white-and-pink envelopes at Makoto the second he drops to the seat in front of her. It’s raining outside—the first rain of June that marks the beginning of the rainy season—and it’s sent most of the students into the cafeteria hall for lunch; a complete change to how lunch hours in May had nearly all students eating out at the university’s yard or roof area.

Makoto puts down the bentou box he’s holding on the table and blinks at the two envelopes. “Again?” there’s a note of dismay in his voice. “Don’t you tell them that I already have someone, Zaki-chan?”

Aki chuckles, amused. “I don’t think that would make them back off, Makoto-kun.”

Makoto sighs. “Please don’t tell Rin.”

“Matsuoka-kun doesn’t mind. I think he’s actually a bit smug that he’s dating someone who’s grown to be super popular in three months after he joined the swimming club.” She opens her own bentou box, properly claps her hands lightly with a mumbled “itadakimasu” before fishing out a chicken sandwich. Makoto spends a moment to wonder whether Aki had made the bentou herself or whether Haruka made this one, because there’s something familiar to how the sandwiches are cut into neat triangles.

“I don’t like having to reject them,” Makoto muses, looking back at the two cute envelopes. “I feel bad when they cry, every time.”

“Oh, Makoto-kun,” Aki says, patting him on the hand lightly. “Don’t worry about that. Girls are very strong, if it comes to someone they truly love.” She tilts her head, gestures to the pink envelope. “I’m not one to judge someone’s feelings, but that one comes from the one senpai who’s notorious for changing boyfriends three times a month, so please be careful if you’re considering her.”

Makoto looks at her, incredulous. “There’s no way I’m considering her! I have—“

Aki laughs, amused and happy, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Yes, yes, you have Matsuoka-kun.”

“Zaki-chan, stop teasing me…”

“I’m not,” Aki chuckles. “This is also part of what you’ve achieved, Makoto-kun. You’re currently our university’s best backstroke swimmer, and even before this everyone in our year knows you as our gentle giant, and the fact that you’re tall, have really great muscles and a very attractive face doesn’t hurt either.” She pauses, excitement shining in her eyes this time, as she leans forward and drops her voice. “I heard you beat the swimming club’s captain in backstroke the other day?”

Makoto flushes. “It was just luck. Backstroke isn’t the Captain’s forte, and he wasn’t trying too hard to win—“

“Still,” Aki taps the edge of the table. “They say that you’d probably be made Captain, next year, if you keep doing well. That’s amazing, Makoto-kun.”

“Ah, there’s—been some talk about it with the Captain but I’m not sure? It’d probably be rude to the other senpai, so nothing’s decided yet.”

They end up spending the lunch hour reading the love letters Makoto gets that day, and Aki takes pictures of them so she could bug Rin with it. Later that day, Rin sends Makoto a picture of himself, standing on the edge of the pool and dripping water everywhere, with a caption of  _if you’re planning to cheat, remember you’re going to lose this_ .

The message also has a post-script:  _Great job on being the ace backstroke swimmer of the team_ .

Makoto laughs and sends a picture of himself cuddling a brown cat he’d found in an alley close to his apartment building.

** \----o0o----- **

“Why are you even sending me an empty box of condom?”

“Oh my god,” Aki says from where she’s sitting next to Haruka, but she doesn’t look up. “I probably shouldn’t be here, if you’re going to turn this into boys-only talk.”

“You don’t count, Yazaki-san,” Rin’s voice is tinny over the speakers, tinged with laughter.

Haruka hums in agreement, eyes never leaving his sketchbook, his grip steady on the pencil moving against the paper. “You should only be worried if Makoto sends Rin a box of condoms.”

“Haruuuu!” Makoto whines, red to the tips of his ears. Rin laughs, voice half-broken with statics, but sounding no less happy.

“This box could mean so many things, how am I supposed to guess? There was the time when we were halfway doing stuff and then I realized we ran out of con—“

“Oh my god,” Aki says casually, voice louder, and Rin bursts out laughing.

“That’s not it, Rin! Zaki-chan, I swear, this doesn’t mean anything lewd—“ Makoto turns back to Rin’s teasing grin on the screen, throwing a half-hearted glare at him. “You know why I sent you that!”

Rin’s grin morphs into a soft smile. “That one time when I gave you a flower ring, and you put it in an empty condom box because you don’t want to crush it, right?”

“Ugh,” Haruka says as he makes a face, and this time it’s Aki who starts laughing in earnest, hands coming up to cover the lower half of her face, eyes crinkling with the force of laughter.

** \-----o0o----- **

He sends out,  _Trainings for the Regionals tryst begin today. I’m so excited for the relay!_

It takes about ten minutes before his phone chimes with a message from Rin.  _Gym. Get back to you in half an hour._ And then it chimes again, this time with a short,  _I knew you’d try for the relay team. Work hard, prospective Captain._

Makoto smiles, surreptitiously looks around to make sure that no one else is in the swimming club’s locker room, and kisses the top of his cell phone.

** \-----o0o----- **

Tokyo moves through the rainy season almost sluggishly—its grey skies and wet grounds a stark contrast with its bustles of train stations and waves of people on the road. Tachibana Makoto gets into the bustle and hustle of the metropolitan city, too—chasing trains, mingling with the commuters’ rush hour, dropping by hundred-yen stores for daily necessities, reading study materials on the train, complaining over exams and assignments and love letters that never cease, and going to the pool every day to practice for the Regionals.

“What was that entry, Tachibana!” the Captain roars on one Wednesday morning, when he wasn’t quite awake thanks to getting up at four in the morning so he could talk to Rin over the phone. “And you call yourself a swimmer?!”

Makoto scrambles to surface. “Yes!”

“Do it once more!”

“Yes!”

There are claps on shoulders after every practice, tired smiles exchanged that never lose their spirits. Aki brings him coffee when they meet before morning classes, and they spend ten minutes going over assignments and study materials before the first class starts. There are flyers on the department’s news board: volunteer activities for summer camp, meeting notices, tutoring requests, part-time job openings. He considers volunteering for a nursery, sees the hours, and deflates because it’d interfere with his swimming practices.

His life gets busier, but Makoto still stops at the roof area of his department building, sometimes, to take a picture of Tokyo’s non-existent skyline, and sends it to Rin. Rin replies with a beautiful picture of Sydney’s horizon as the sun sets, and Makoto sets it as his phone’s lockscreen background.

Then on one Sunday Skype night, Rin calls him with the biggest grin on his face.

“It’s about my next competition,” there’s excitement in every corner of Rin’s face, in every syllable of his words. Makoto gives up on holding back and reaches out to touch the lines of Rin’s jaw, a lingering caress because when Rin gets excited, he’s blinding and that’s when he’s most beautiful. He sees Rin’s gaze softens a little, but that doesn’t tamper with the excitement bubbling up his voice when he says, “If I break my record in the next competition, if I get gold, I’d be qualified to represent Japan for the Olympics.”

Makoto pauses, eyes wide, and sits up straighter. “Rin!”

Rin beams. “I know, right?!”

“That’s so amazing!” Makoto cries, feels something in his chest burst with pride and warmth, and god, he wishes Rin is here. “That’s—that’s really, really amazing, Rin, I’m so happy for you! When is the competition?”

“In two weeks. About nine days after your Regionals.” Rin visibly sobers up, even though the corners of his lips are still curving up, like he can’t quite hold back his grin. And there’s no reason to do so, really, because Makoto is grinning so wide himself that his cheeks are starting to hurt. “We’ll do our best, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Makoto nods. “I’m going to do my best at the tryst for Regionals, too.”

“You’ll be trying for the 100 meter backstroke too, right?” Rin breaks into a grin again, and scoots closer to his laptop, leaning down to press his forehead against the camera. Makoto smiles, follows the gesture, and closes his eyes. “You can do it, Makoto.”

Makoto inhales, remembers the sensation of diving into the water, the blue sky that stretches above him as he breaks his way through the water, each stroke a satisfying struggle. “You too, Rin.”

Qualified for Olympics, Makoto thinks, and his chest puffs up with pride.  After everything, after all the things Rin had to go through, he’s finally at this point of chasing his dream. And he’s not alone, either—Makoto knows that above everything, what he admires from Rin is how Rin urges people to move forward even as he streaks through life, bright crimson that blinds everyone who happens to catch a sight of him, including Makoto himself.

To have such a star guiding him—Makoto feels a bit humbled.

He’s an ordinary boy—always have been. He doesn’t wish for the world; he’s happy with his telescope as he watches the stars blinking down at him. But he likes trying to jump up and reaches towards the stars, too.

Everyone’s dream is different, and one is never less than the others, no matter how simple they sound. Makoto might not dream for the world, but he wants to swim and race others, nonetheless, because it’s something he loves, something he enjoys. He thinks of children, thinks of helping them find their own way to swim, to do the same thing he loves, to show them the same stars that he’s always seen, and he knows it’s where he wants to be.

He doesn’t need the whole world.

But striving hard for a small portion of it that he loves isn’t bad, either.

** \-----o0o----- **

_RIN. RIN, HARU JUST ASKED ZAKI-CHAN ON A DATE._

“It’d be nice to spend a whole day at Shinjuku Gyoen. I’ve always wanted to check the Japanese garden there,” Aki says, a sunflower smile curving up her face, and Haruka, who sits in front of her, hums in agreement, face a careful blank expression even though his knuckles are white around his mug of hot chocolate. Makoto tries to be discreet about capslocking Rin in the message, because Haru just asked Zaki-chan on a date oh my God, Rin, please don’t be busy, and of course, that is when Aki turns to him. “What about this Sunday? Makoto-kun, would you be available?”

“Huh?” Makoto squeaks, just as his phone vibrates. Rin’s reply:  _Fuck. Does Yazaki-san understand that this is a date?_

Well. Makoto glances at Haruka, takes in the way his shoulders slouch slightly in disappointment, and laughs almost nervously. “Um, well, Sunday is—I don’t think—“

Aki tilts her head. “Then should we go on Saturday?”

_I don’t think she realizes that Haru just asked her out on a date._

“Saturday is fine,” Haruka mumbles, putting his mug of chocolate on the table quietly and reaching out for his sketchbook. Makoto wants to bury his face in his palms, but he opts to read Rin’s reply instead:  _This is where you make yourself scarce, Makoto._

Makoto shoots up to his feet, fast enough that his knees nearly bump against the coffee table. “I can’t either on Saturday!” He says, and begins to wave his phone frantically. “And, uh, Rin wants to talk, so I’ll. Be in my room. Just for a while!”

Haruka’s head snaps out, and Makoto reads panic in his eyes. “Makoto—“

“You can do it, Haru!” he grins, and scrambles to reach the door, manages not to trip on his own feet on his way out. “Good luck!”

“Wait—“

“Eh? Makoto-kun—“

The door closes with a decisive sound behind him, and Makoto heaves a sigh.

**\-----o0o-----**

He gets a message from Aki fourteen minutes past midnight, and laughs.

“What is it?” Rin asks, his face on Makoto’s laptop screen turning curious, and Makoto grins, turning his phone towards the screen so Rin could see the message instead.

“Fuck,” Rin says, half-awed. “Haru doesn’t go halfway.”

It’s a picture of Aki leaning against Haruka’s shoulder, one hand holding Haruka’s own, red dusting her cheeks as she makes a peace sign with her other hand, and the caption says,  _Thank you ♥_ .

** \-----o0o----- **

There’s a proud smile on his Captain’s face when he announces Makoto’s name for the 100 meter backstroke race.

Makoto steels himself, and answers, “Yes!”

** \-----o0o------ **

“Tokyo’s summer,” Nagisa whines, dragging the last syllable of his sentences long. “Is so hooooooooooot.”

“Iwatobi is hotter, Nagisa-kun,” Rei answers, dropping his backpack on Haruka’s living room. “Haruka-senpai, we’re sorry to bother you.”

Haruka spares a glance at them from where he’s cooking mackerels, a soft smile on his lips. “It’s summer vacation, you should enjoy it.”

“Haru-chan is the best!” Nagisa exclaims, bounding over to the kitchen to nuzzle Haruka’s back with his head. Makoto laughs from where he stands behind Rei, bending down to snatch Nagisa’s backpack from the floor, gesturing at Rei.

“Come on, Rei, the guest room is over here.”

“…..Makoto-senpai, let Nagisa-kun get his own things in, please don’t spoil him.”

“Rei-chan, so mean!”

“Is Gou staying at Mikoshiba-san’s?” Haruka tilts his head, seemingly unbothered with how Nagisa doesn’t stop nuzzling his back, punctuated with exaggerated “I miss you Haru-chaaan” and “I miss everyoneee” and “can we have sweets for dinner tonight can we can wee” in the background.

“She’s staying at Zaki-chan’s, actually,” Makoto says. “They’ll come over at dinner. Really, Haru, if you don’t stop forgetting to check your cell phone, Zaki-chan is going to be mad.”

“She won’t,” Haruka counters absently. “She’d just message you.”

Makoto shakes his head, amused.

Dinner is at Haruka’s place, and for the first time after so long, Makoto has his whole team (plus Aki, but she’d been in Iwatobi too once upon a time, when they were children and had less things to worry about) scattered around the table, warm and relaxed and happy. Nagisa has apparently brought over several Iwatobi buns, which Gou snatches away immediately with a light scolding of “Look at your muscles, Nagisa-kun, they’re deteriorating, please eat properly!” and prompting endless whines and fake-tears from the blond. Rei gives them updates on how he’s preparing for the scholarship he applied for, and which send them all debating over good universities both in Japan and overseas, and at some point, Makoto thinks he’s a bit awed at how very different their conversation topics are now, compared to back when they were mere high school students.

Then again, Nagisa still has both hands full with pizza as he works his way inhaling almost all the leftovers, Haruka still defends mackerels with his very being, Rei still complains on how things are not beautiful, and Gou still marvels over Haruka’s muscles, so nothing really changes, in the end.

“Your race is tomorrow, right, Mako-chan?” Nagisa beams up at him. “We’ll make sure to cheer very, very loudly! We won’t let your fanclub be louder than us!”

“I don’t have a fanclub,” Makoto protests feebly, and both Haruka and Aki chorus, “Yes, he has a fanclub.”

“Very well!” Rei says, his grin wide as he pushes his glasses up. “We can’t have Rin-senpai get angry at us for not being louder than Makoto-senpai’s fanclub!”

“Rin won’t be made about that,” Makoto begins, but Gou already has her hands up in the air excitedly and starts chanting, “Banner, banner, banner, banner, let’s make a banner!” Predictably, of course, Nagisa joins in the chant. There’s nothing Makoto could do about that, really.

He sighs, almost too content with every thing, and glances at the laptop by his side, its little light blinking as it stands by. He glances again at the clock—almost nine. It’s Sunday, and yet, Rin is late for their weekly Skype call.

His phone stays silent, too. Makoto wonders if Rin is asleep, and wishes Rin could be there with them, too.

** \-----o0o----- **

Gou steals his jersey.

“Gou-chan,” he whines, because he’s too nervous to joke around already, and several seats up, there are a group of girls wearing shirts with his name and a lot of hearts emblazoned on it, whispering loudly and furiously at how close Gou is standing to him. On his other side, most of his teammates are throwing him half-amused, half-envious looks. “Give it back.”

“No,” Gou says nonchalantly, beaming up at him. “I’m here to represent Oniichan so those girls at the back know that you’re taken.”

“They all know I’m taken—“

“They really don’t care,” Aki hums cheerfully from where she sits next to Haruka. Haruka’s university team is on the opposite side of the stadium itself, and his bright red and blue jersey stands out in stark contrast with Makoto’s university’s white and black jersey, but Haruka doesn’t seem to mind having other people look at him strangely for not sitting at where he should be sitting.

“See,” Gou says pointedly and proceeds to wear Makoto’s jersey, much to the collective shrill murmurs from the back and the increasingly envious looks coming from Makoto’s teammates. Makoto sighs, whirles around when one of his teammates coughs out a teasing “Lucky you, Tachibana,” and flails. “Gou isn’t my girlfriend!”

“Representative,” Nagisa chimes in from his seat, proudly holding up the banner they had stayed up late to make, Rei holding the other end. Makoto is just thankful that instead of his name, his university’s logo and swimming club’s name is written in huge, block letters there. “If you’re not good, Mako-chan, I’ll report to Rin-chan!”

Haruka makes a face at Nagisa. “Rin will just be smug about it.”

“How many girlfriends do you actually have, Tachibana,” one of Makoto’s teammates punches him good-naturedly on the shoulder, laughing, and Makoto gives up.

** \-----o0o----- **

There’s a familiar, much-missed anticipation lurking low in his stomach as he slinks down into the water and hoists himself up against the ladder, knuckles white and breath heavy. He could hear his own heartbeat, thrumming to the tips of his fingers, and the world quietens down, narrows to this single moment of waiting—

The buzzer goes off, and he throws himself back in a perfect arc, gives himself to the water and pushes himself through.

He surfaces to the bright blue sky he’s missed so much, and a sense of excitement as well as happiness bursting in his chest. He pushes, slices through, stroke after stroke, hard and powerful because it’s the only way he knows how to make the water part for him. And part for him it does, lets him slide through with almost no resistance, and as Makoto notices the person on the next line catching up with hime, he thinks,  _I have missed this._

The water splashes as he makes his turn, a perfect roll before his feet pushes him back the other way, and he a sense of accomplishment tingles through his whole being as he realizes that the whole stadium is screaming, a jumble of names and chants and yells, and his chest tightens a little.

He hears his name. He could pick out the voices. There’s Nagisa’s, almost too high-pitched for a boy, and Gou’s voice overlapping with Aki’s, higher than the rest of his fanclubs and teammates. There’s Rei, leading them in yealing their old chants back when they were at Iwatobi, another wave of nostalgia that sweeps through him even as he closes the last distance between him and the last five meters. He throws his arms harder, pushes faster, puts everything he has on the line, and imagines Haruka watching, eyes hard and proud and—

“Makoto!!!”

Voice rough, too-familiar, a hoarse scream of his name amidst the chants and the yells.

“Makoto,go! Last, last, last!!!”

The slightest hint of the lilt that wraps around his name like a lover’s embrace.

“You can do it!! Makotooooooo!!!”

With a breathless bark of laugh, Makoto slices through the last meter with the force of an orca.

His hand slaps the edge of the pool and the buzzer goes off, deafening, but less so compared to how the audience explodes. Makoto looks up, sees his name on the first place of the heat, listening to the chant of his and his university’s name echoing to the corners of the stadium. The water sways around him, gentle and approving, and Makoto closes his eyes and reminds himself to breathe.

He forgets to breathe anyway, when he opens his eyes back and looks up at the stands, to see his team all on their feet, his fanclub toppling over one another in excitement, Nagisa and Rei standing on their seats waving the banner proudly, Aki clapping with her hands above her head, Haruka’s fierce expression spelling out pride next to her, and Gou still shouting down his name, one arm clinging to—

Rin, bright and blinding, standing on the stands in Makoto’s jersey, leaning forward so far that half of his upper body is over the fence, beaming down on him like a real star—like the sun against the bright blue sky, all sharp teeth and proud gaze, and Makoto’s chest expands.

“Makotooooo!!!” Rin shouts, because of course he would, because no one loves grand gestures as much as Matsuoka Rin does. And then, for good measure, Rin pumps up his fist, and Makoto’s mouth falls open in awe. “Great job kicking aaasss!!!”

“Oniichan!” Gou yelps in warning, pulling Rin back a little with a sharp tug, but Rin’s laughter doesn’t die, his grin doesn’t fade. Makoto stares and stares, at the streak of crimson Rin leaves with his laughter, at the way everything around him brightens, at the way he captures everyone’s attention just with a shout, and something in him twists for a second with the realization of how much he loves Rin.

“Fuh,” It’s impossible not to laugh, really, because he never even realizes that he dreams of this moment. And once it’s out, it’s hard to stop, but Makoto lets the laughter bubbles up his throat, lets them slip out to the air and leaves him even more breathless, lets them shake his shoulders with the force of it.

Around him, the water sways.

** \-----o0o----- **

Haruka grips his hand tightly when he gets back to the stand, and Nagisa literally bowls over him, screaming on his ear about how “Mako-chan is totally the greatest ever, that was amazing, you should see yourself did that turn, oh my god, Mako-chan!!” while Rei grips his other hand, completely forgetting their banner. Aki gives him a thumbs-up, and Gou waits patiently until Nagisa is done screaming before launching himself to hug him tight.

Rin doesn’t hug him. Rin simply burrows deeper into Makoto’s jersey and beams at him.

Makoto lets Gou fumble her way off his arms, before closing their distance in three long strides, arms opening to wind themselves around Rin’s shoulder, his body automatically folding itself along Rin’s curves, enveloping him in tight embrace. Rin’s arms curls around his sides, resting on his back, his laughter falls gently in Makoto’s ears, and Makoto breathes in.

“Welcome home,” he murmurs, thinks of how silly it is to say those words when they’re not even home,  but it feels right anyway, and judging from how Rin tightens their embrace, he probably thinks the same.

Rin’s breath grazes his ears as he whispers, “I’m home.”

** \-----o0o----- **

Because his current team doesn’t mind anyway, Makoto ditches them for a celebration dinner with his old team. He ignores the friendly jabs from his teammates about having his girlfriend visiting—as well as a bunch of very perceptive, discreet nudge from several of his teammates about Rin who keeps wearing his jersey and how Makoto doesn’t seem to mind it at all—and takes everyone to his and Aki’s favorite yakiniku place for dinner.

Haruka gives him a pointed look when he says yakiniku, and says, “You’re playing favorite.”

Rin grins at Haruka, bumping their shoulders playfully. “You’re just mad that you don’t get to eat mackerels tonight.”

“Stop being so smug,” Haruka counters, but it’s half-hearted and the corners of his lips are twitching up. On his other side, Nagisa is worming his way between Haruka and Aki, and endless stream of  _kalbi-kalbi-kalbi-kalbi_ falling from his mouth.

In between mouthful of meat and vegetables, in between wars for kalbi and Nagisa stealing meat from everyone’s place, in between Rei claiming that the meat’s color would be more beautiful if only they would be patient and wait for it to cook properly, there are stories exchanged over what they have missed from each other’s life. Plans for studying abroad, encouragements from those who have been abroad, deciding on which majors to take and advices from those who had experienced the university student life first. There are also excited grins over Rin and Haruka’s prospects in qualifying for Olympics, demands for details on how Haruka and Aki hooked up, and Makoto’s fanclub in general.

Makoto turns to Rin, still wrapped in his jersey, chopsticks warring against Gou’s as they fight for the last kalbi which Haruka steals anyway, and smiles in contentment. Rin glances at him, lips tugging up as he scoots closer into Makoto’s private space, hands inches away from touching.

“So,” Makoto begins, voice just a tad bit higher from a whisper. “Where are you staying?”

Rin hums. “I could actually go and find a hotel room for the night,” he says, and Makoto only has the time to open his mouth to protest before Rin raises an eyebrow and slyly adds, “But I remember someone giving me a duplicate key to their apartment when I left for Australia.”

Heat climbs up Makoto’s face so fast, he has to duck his face. “I didn’t think you’d bring it home.”

“You said it yourself, though,” Rin murmurs, and in the bright light of the yakiniku place, in the midst of warm laughter and companionable conversations filling the air, it’s too easy to catch how Rin’s eyes soften, how the rough edges of his grin smoothes into fondness. “I brought it home.”

Home. It sounds right, coming from Rin. Makoto chuckles, and bumps his forehead against Rin’s shoulder, exhales softly as Rin’s hand comes to rest on top of his head. Home, he repeats silently, and thinks of his friends around him, and Rin’s warmth by his side.

“Get a room,” Haruka tells Rin, the slightest tone of teasing in his voice, and Makoto chuckles as he listens to Rin trying to threaten anyone who dares touch the last kalbi on the grill.

**\-----o0o-----  **

Eventually, they do get a room. Makoto’s, to be precise, and even though it means he has to keep kissing Rin in order to keep their noises down, it’s still amazing. Learning Rin’s body all over again after almost a year being apart, mapping the new callouses and scratches upon smooth skin, swallowing each other’s moans and groans as they move in sync, chasing their climax—there’s a different kind of contentment, of satisfaction, Makoto thinks, as he curls himself along the lean lines of Rin’s body and presses closer.

“How long are you staying?” he asks, when it becomes too hot to stay in each other’s arms (and grossly sticky, but Rin doesn’t seem to mind). He traces haphazard shapes against Rin’s left shoulder, lets Rin run the tip of his finger up and down his hip, enjoying the fleeting touch.

“I have a week before my race.” At this, Rin’s face hardens with determination. “I can’t lose this.”

“You won’t,” Makoto says, conviction clear in his voice simply because he can’t picture a future where Rin fails his race a week from now. “You’ll break your own record, you’ll win, and you’ll get to the Olympics.”

Rin’s fingers stop, his face tilting up as he grins. “You did your part of trying your best. Next week’s my turn, I guess.”

Makoto can’t resist the urge to lean down and steal another kiss, except Rin’s hand finds his nape and holds him there, drawing out the kiss. He gives in to the urge and deepens it, lets Rin tease his mouth open and accepts Rin’s sigh like it’s his favorite sweets. The tips of Rin’s fingers skitter down his nape to his shoulderblade, calculating and interested, and Makoto shivers, going down with the pull like Rin is gravity itself.

“I’m glad I decided to join the swimming club,” Makoto says against the line of Rin’s jaw, one hand resting over Rin’s pulse, feeling its steadily rising staccato beats.

Rin tilts his head slightly, nose nuzzling Makoto’s hairline. “Are you sure you don’t want to try aiming for the world?”

Makoto laughs. “I don’t want that,” he says, and feels confidence lacing his words, this time. “It’s where you should be, Rin. The place I want to be is among the children, showing them how much fun swimming is, how great it is to swim with everyone. Showing them how bright you and Haru are, with the world in your hands.”

He feels Rin’ s breath catches, and he isn’t sure whether it’s just from his words or if it’s because of the way his breath falls upon Rin’s ear, but when he speaks again, Rin’s voice shakes a little. “Sap.”

“Yours,” Makoto says, laughing, kisses Rin deep.

** \-----o0o----- **

The ticket actually shines under the blinding Tokyo summer sun.

Makoto stares at it dumbly, even as Rin starts laughing shakily. Haruka  doesn’t react, just keeps his hand outstretched and steady, and by his side, both Nagisa and Rei look at Makoto with expectant excitement.

“You guys are crazy,” Rin finally says, almost breathless, but Makoto still stares at the ticket, blinking in confusion. It has the same date as Rin’s departure date back to Sydney—the same airlines, even, though it has a different flight time. There’s another ticket underneath it, one dated two weeks after Rin’s supposed race, and Makoto looks up, uncertain.

“You need a vacation, Makoto-kun,” Aki smiles. “The team said they don’t mind letting you go to Australia and come back right before the Nationals, as long as you’d still be practicing there. I’m sure Matsuoka-kun won’t let you slack off.”

“What,” Makoto says, the word feels like lead on his tongue. “What are you—“

“It’s gonna be a super important race, Mako-chan!” Nagisa chimes up. “So of course there has to be someone who could be there for the rest of us to cheer for Rin-chan!”

“My brother has connections in that airlines and we got discounts,” Rei adds. “The amount that we had to chip in aren’t that big at all, but in the end there’s only enough for one person, and we think you should go, Makoto-senpai.”

Haruka steps closer, taking Makoto’s hand and putting the ticket in them. “Take it,” he says, and turns to nod at Rin. “Be there for us, Makoto.”

The back of his eyes prickle when he feels Rin lacing their fingers together, the tickets a barely-there weight between their palms. He looks up, at Haruka’s small smile and Aki’s bright eyes, at Nagisa’s excited grin and Rei’s satisfied gaze.

“Thank you,” his voice trembles, but Rin’s weight against his arm steadies him. “Thank you, everyone.”

** \-----o0o----- **

Nine days later, when Rin’s hand slaps the edge of the pool and the buzzer goes up, Makoto screams his throat raw with Gou by his side on the stands, in the sea of people with bright-colored hair and a language he could barely speak.

The score board blinks with Rin’s name on the first place—but what matters is the number of time blinking right next to it. A full second faster than Rin’s old record, Makoto realizes with awe, and then it dawns with a crash on him:  _Rin is qualified for Olympics_ .

He’s dating a prospective Olympian, who might just have the whole world in his palm, the next time.

“Oh my god,” he says, breathless and giddy, and beside her, Gou bursts out into happy laughter, fingers clutching Makoto’s arm almost painfully. “Oh my god,” he repeats, takes a deep breath, and lets it out in a scream of Rin’s name.

Down, down there in the pool, Rin is thrusting a fist up, eyes never going anywhere but where Makoto and Gou are, his smile the most blinding thing Makoto has ever seen. Around him, the water sparkles, as if it’s giving Rin its own crowning moment, majestic under Australia’s quiet winter sun that shines through the glass roof.

The medal glints as it bounces against Rin’s neck, but still less bright than Rin’s own grin, less bright than the crinkles on the corners of Rin’s eyes. Again, this time from the stands, Makoto watches Rin streak a blinding crimson through everyone’s world, chest expanding with pride, and for once he doesn’t think about looking through the telescope, because even if he’s an ordinary boy and Rin is a star, then Rin’s light is now a guidepost for him to run in the dark.

Later, much later, when Rin’s gone and done all the victory interviews and photos, he runs out to where Makoto and Gou are waiting, beaming brighter than Makoto remembers him seeing when he was a child. He reaches out, catches Rin in his arms and embraces him tight, finding no other words than Rin’s name and joyful pride to whisper against Rin’s ear, and Rin laughs, free and happy.

“Olympics, Makoto!” he exclaims, giddiness in every inch of his being, and the next thing Makoto realizes is Rin pulling away, arms winding around his neck, and then the gold medal jingles against Makoto’s chest.

He loses his breath. “Rin—“

“Don’t let Mom know that you’re wearing this first,” Rin chuckles, and for the first time, Makoto notices that his eyes are gleaming with something other than excitement. His hand comes up to touch Rin’s jaw carefully, thumb finding the corner of Rin’s right eye and comes away slightly wet, but for once, Rin doesn’t seem to be embarrassed.

Makoto laughs, almost uncontrollably as the giddiness threatens to bring him under again, and picks up the gold medal to press it against Rin’s lips. “Congratulations, Rin,” he whispers, and presses his lips against the other side of the medal, listening to Rin’s unsrestrained laughter, and grins when Rin’s hand finds his own and holds on.

Gou takes a picture of the two of them and the gold medal, sending it to Haruka and the others. Later that night, when Rin’s head is snugly pillowed on Makoto’s chest, his phone chimes with a message from Haruka—one short phrase clearly meant for Rin:  _Catch up to you soon_ .

His stars are unbearably beautiful and bright, Makoto thinks proudly, as Rin smothers a laugh against his bare chest.

** \-----o0oendo0o----- **

**Author's Note:**

> (ALSO CELEBRATES THE NEW mAKORIN DRAMA CD CONTENT, WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE)


End file.
